“Love With A Quality” by Latino pop star Karol G and reggae royalty Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley is the latest reggae collaboration to surpass 100 million views on YouTube.
The music video for the single released Thursday, 9 May 2019, features both Latin and Jamaican backdrops set in a Jamaica. The opening scene shot on the St. Ann horizon with the Ocho Rios pier in view has Marley toasting in front of a Jamaican flag in a make shift community while Karol does her first verse in Spanish and joins him on the chorus in English. Karol G is dressed in dancehall attire performing on the porch of a house.
The collab produced by Latin Urbana hitmaker Ovy On The Drum, encourages people to take advantage of life and appreciate the little things, which ultimately improves the quality of life.
Latin-Reggae collabs
Over the years dancehall and reggae acts have found successful collaborations with songs like Gloria Trevi’s Me Lloreas featuring Dancehall artist Charly Black surpassing 100 million streams on YouTube.
“I just put in the hard work and try to make the right moves. I realized a long time ago that making music with a global reach is the right strategy,” Black told World Music Views. “It’s always nice to have a hot record in the core market too but having songs that do well on an international level just opens so many more doors.”
Julian Jones-Griffith, manager to Charly Black who was instrumental in bringing the collaboration to fruition also told WMV, “Gloria Trevi is a huge star in Mexico, a bonafide icon that has been likened to Madonna. Her life and career has spanned massive albums, movies and she was even arrested and imprisoned there for like 5 years.”
“When the idea for a collaboration with Charly was pitched to me by Universal it was a no-brainer and turned out to be a great decision. Taking Artists into different realms and markets is essential if you want to truly become a global star. As they say don’t listen to the noise, watch the sale and Charly’s numbers don’t lie.”
“We have another big project we’re about to announce that he’s a part of and is dropping this week that is another first for a Caribbean Artist,” he continued.
The Party Animal DJ’s latest achievement places him among a growing list of Jamaican Reggae, Reggae-Pop and Dancehall artists who are finding massive success on YouTube with Reggaeton collaborations.
Other cross-culture collaboration songs include Sunset by Farruko featuring Nicky Jam and Shaggy with 311M, Chillax by Farruko featuring Ky-Mani Marley with 726M, Contra La Pared by J. Balvin and Sean Paul has 221M views, Passion Whine by Farruko and Sean Paul has 454M views, Privado produced by Rvssian featuring Nicky Jam, Farruko, Arcangel, and Konshens has 231M views, and Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley and Karol G’s Love With A Quality has 87M views.
In answering whether reggae-dancehall artists are finding more success with Reggaeton than they are with doing reggae Jones said, “Reggaeton Artists on a whole have a much bigger fanbase that are already users of the streaming platforms so if you make a good track with an established artist in that field the chances of success and good numbers are a lot higher. Our core audience is still getting on board with platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify so it’s a good way to tap into a wider audience by doing these kinds of collaborations”.
Although not visible in the current upload, Jones said this is Charly’s second 100 million music video as he previously registered over 200m with the hit single Party Animal, which was certified Gold by the RIAA.
Charly Black with his Gold Record for ‘Gyal You A Party Animal’“The original YouTube post of Party Animal isn’t included (on the current video upload). The original upload had 88m but when we did the deal with Universal (Records) we had it transferred over to VEVO at the time where it had 212m views, so you’re looking at over 300m views for that track, not even counting the Daddy Yankee remix views”.
Jones confirmed that Blacks will be dropping an album as well as more Reggaeton singles in the future. “Yes we are putting together an album presently to drop soon. His 2017 track You’re Perfect went viral on TikTok. It’s starting to pick up on mainstream in the US now so there’s a lot of great things happening.”
