Power 105’s Breakfast Club host Charlamage The God has given a resounding endorsement to Canadian Dancehall artist Snow and his Platinum single “Informa.”
Charlamage, real name Lenard Mkelvy posted a meme with Snow’s image on Instagram which says: “This guy said “informer youknwosujnriblaa” and then dipped.
The popular New York radio host caption the image called Snow a “Legend.” Then stated, “Still got the skreets in a chokehold if you ask me. This is what the game is missing, who amongst us can restore the feeling??? Let’s Discuss……”
Whilst Snow’s Billboard chart topper was a hit in the U.S. when it came out, Charlamagne’s endorsement of white reggae-dancehall deejay is an about turn to his take last year October when Virginia reggae group SOJA won the Grammy Award for Best Reggae album.
At the time The Brilliant Idiots Podcast host came out in support of hardcore dancehall artist Spice whose debut album 10 was also nominated for Best Reggae Album at the 64th Annual Grammy awards.
“If you ask me who should win that category, I would say Spice, you know why? Cause I like Spice, I haven’t heard the music though,” said the shock jock on his weekly Brilliant Idiots podcast.
He later substantiated,”I have heard Spice’s records.”
“By the way I have never heard this white group but I don’t care, it’s the Grammys,” Charlamagne told his fellow co-hosts Andrew Schultz and Wax 100 on his podcast.
The Comedy Central TV host, observing the social media backlash by black twitter and Jamaican twitter as a result of the surprise reggae Grammy award last Sunday, said no one should allow the Grammys to get them upset. “Why do y’all allow the Grammys to make y’all mad about things,” he said.
“The Grammys has never historically gotten it right,” he reflected.
The South Carolina native admitted that there is a lack of mainstream attention to reggae at the Grammys and said, “We wouldn’t have noticed that category (reggae) if people hadn’t got mad about it on social media.”
“And if Spice woulda won, which she probably should have we wouldn’t even that much conversation around her winning the way we do around these white guys winning, we have to stop doing that. Why do we continuously do that,” he assessed.
“The Grammys is not ours,” he concluded.
Spice was nominated for the Grammy award in the reggae category alongside Jamaican artists Jesse Royal, Sean Paul, Gramps Morgan, and Etana. SOJA is the second non-Jamaican reggae band to win the award.
Informa peaked at No. 1 in 13 countries and finish the year (1993) at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 17 on the U.K. singles chart. In addition to being certified Platinum in the U.S., the song is also certified Silver in the U.K. for selling more than 200,000 units, Platinum in Germany(500,000) and New Zealand (10,000). The song was remixed into Daddy Yankee’s Con Calma which featured Snow. That song is certified 41x Latin Platinum by the Recording Industry Association Of America for selling more than 2.46 million units.
