The last year has seen a wave of collaborations between Caribbean and African artists, but Machel Montano was already ahead of the trend: he collaborated with Ladysmith Black Mambazo on “Possessed” back in 2013, and hopped on a remix of Timaya‘s “Shake Your Bum Bum” in 2014. He even brought Timaya, a Nigerian MC with a very Caribbean-inspired sound, out to Trinidad for that year’s Machel Monday concert.
For his latest Carnival 2K16 offering, Machel has hopped on a remix of “Bend Down Pause,” the bashment-inspired instructional dance track from Nigeria’s Runtown and Wizkid that has been making the rounds at Carnivals and fetes. If you’ve seen the song’s video, which features dancehall steps from dancers like Crazy Hype, you know Major Lazer’s Walshy Fire is in the mix, too, making this track possibly the first-ever link-up between Nigeria, Trinidad and Jamaica. This isn’t one of those mailed-in remixes, either: Machel brings two verses, Trini-fying the track with lines like, “Bumpah I attack, yuh winin very slack.”
Listen below, catch up with the rest of Machel’s Carnival releases over at his Soundcloud, and learn more about the in our King of Carnival video series.