The tim­ing couldn’t be more ap­pro­pri­ate. The ac­tion, per­fect­ly synced. It’s al­most as though the Uni­verse called on Caribbean singers like Isas­ha, Tur­bu­lence, Caple­ton and oth­ers of the reg­gae mu­sic move­ment, to speak up.

Mes­sen­gers of­ten abound from the least like­ly places, they say. Over the years reg­gae mu­sic has told of a need to unite, pos­i­tive­ly im­pact oth­ers and steer clear of evil. New York City’s Syn­thdi­cate Mu­sic la­bel is now the chan­nel by which this vi­bra­tion is sud­den­ly be­ing re-awak­ened. New reg­gae mu­sic with re­al pow­er is about to pen­e­trate, and for the team at Syn­thdi­cate Mu­sic, known for So­ca rid­dms like the Ghost­busters rid­dim and the Bash Gyal rid­dim, this, their sec­ond reg­gae rid­dim, presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to give what’s need­ed amid glob­al un­ease.

“Isas­ha was the first artist to lay vo­cals on this rid­dim,” ex­plained Vic­tor Wells, best known as DJ Fu­ture. He heads the team at Syn­thdi­cate Mu­sic and ex­plained that a ca­su­al meet­ing with Isas­ha in New York a few months ago, led to a com­mit­ment by them both, to work on an EP for the artiste. “His sin­gle, Cyah Draw Mi Out, laid the foun­da­tion for what is now the Rankin Skankin rid­dim,” ex­plained Wells. Eleven artistes – each of them humbly root­ed in the Rasta­far­i­an faith bring pos­i­tive en­er­gy to a world that is reel­ing from the ef­fects of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“We are so hum­bled by the out­come of this project. Ja­maican reg­gae artist, Caple­ton starts off the rid­dim with Rasta­fari Guide— talk­ing about uni­ty and the im­por­tance of pos­i­tive thought,” said Wells. He ac­knowl­edged the im­pact that mu­sic’s lyrics have on those who lis­ten. “The cur­rent en­er­gy around the world right now was am­mu­ni­tion enough for us to en­sure that this rid­dim was pur­pose­ful,” he said.

The rid­dim goes retro with a one drop bounce that’s amped up by the vo­cals ex­e­cut­ed by the cast of artistes, which in­cludes Fan­tan Mo­jah, Jah Thun­der, Lu­tan Fyah, Nel­lo Play­er, Mobyle Malachi, Qshan Deya and De­jaz­match Kwasi among oth­ers. “This goes against the typ­i­cal grain. We’ve in­clud­ed a num­ber of less com­mer­cial­ly known artistes but they’re all de­serv­ing of the ac­knowl­edge­ment be­cause the work speaks vol­umes” said Wells. High­light­ing the ex­cite­ment among mem­bers of the camp, for the re­lease of the new rid­dim, the Syn­dth­i­cate team af­firmed that Caple­ton is in very high spir­its about this one. “He’s very hap­py with what this has turned out to be. He’s re­al­ly ex­cit­ed,” said an­oth­er mem­ber of the team.

Syn­thdi­cate Mu­sic – a la­bel with a team of mu­sic vi­sion­ar­ies that col­lec­tive­ly boast over 40 years of mu­sic ex­pe­ri­ence, is ea­ger to give peo­ple around the world, mu­sic they can hold firm to, strength­en their souls with and sing along to, in these un­cer­tain times. “We’re just do­ing our part to show love to every­one and en­cour­age peace and uni­ty at a time when the world needs it most,” said Wells.