On the heels of the hugely successful Love From A Distance virtual concert, reggae legend Beres Hammond teams up with dancehall star Popcaan for the release of the new single and music video “God is Love,” just two weeks after its debut during the livestream broadcast.
Beres and Popcaan premiered “God Is Love” to cap the February 28th event with an inspired performance and the tremendous popular response has prompted the rush release of the collaboration, the first between these two top stars of the reggae genre.
The songs producer Shane Brown of Jukeboxx Productions said “the song was inspired by a dream. The combination of Beres and Popcaan is refreshing, and the message of the song is real.” The music video for the song, shot on the Harmony House productions lot, on March 1st, is scheduled to debut online in the coming days.
“God Is Love” is available on all digital and streaming platforms beginning Friday, March 12th.
About Beres Hammond:
Over the course of a 40-year career, Beres has poured his smoky-sweet voice—an instrument of subtlety and power reminiscent of an Otis Redding or a Teddy Pendergrass—over every kind of riddim track, from the funked-up reggae jams of the ’70s fusion band Zap Pow to the lush instrumentation of his 1976 album Soul Reggae to the spare digital beat of his 1985 dancehall breakthrough “What One Dance Can Do.” Cuts like “Tempted To Touch” and “Who Say” with Buju Banton are still as effective in the dancehall today as they were as pre-releases. The ’90s were the decade for Hammond’s breakthrough, during which he blazed a trail of modern classics for a variety of producers, from the strugglers’ anthem “Putting Up Resistance” (Tappa) to lovers’ laments like “Come Back Home” (Star Trail) and “Double Trouble” (Steely & Clevie). Beres’s sophisticated musical taste and initiable delivery is well suited to translate easily across cultural divides, yet the international reggae massive has remained his most loyal fan base.
About Popcaan:
Genre-bending Jamaican dancehall singer Popcaan rose to international success in the early 2010s thanks to singles like “Only Man She Want” and “Party Shot.” First as a prominent member of Vybz Kartel’s posse and through work with Dre Skull’s Mixpak label, and now signed to Drake’s OVO Sound roster, the versatile and prolific artist transcended genres through his own singles and on tracks like Jamie xx’s 2015 smash “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)” and Gorillaz’s 2017 “Saturnz Barz,” all leading up to the release of his 2018 sophomore album, Forever. His current project, Fixtape was released in 2020.
