Artist of The Month: Meet Lady K-Wida!

Lady K-Wida

Meet Lady K-Wida! Eventually and hopefully the rest of the world will wake up. As for me, I’ve already been convinced that potentially the next great bastion of Reggae music is the Netherlands and the Dutch Caribbean. As a testament to that, this is already the third time that we find ourselves pulling a Dutch artist for artist of the month, following the very impressive Smiley and Mischu Laikah. Take that and combine it with the fact that we also constantly run into releases from both Ziggi Recado and Maikal X (and not to mention the likes of Benaïssa and Kenny B), and then there’s the ever-pressing issue of the MASSIVE Dutch produced "Judgement Time" album from Chezidek. Dutch Reggae is on FIRE! This time out we find ourselves paying a visit to one of the most interesting and one of the most ‘curiously’ talented - It’s Lady K-Wida. Still fairly a mystery to me, either K-Wida was either born in or certainly has heritage of Suriname and has established herself on the Dutch scene, largely as a female Dancehall DJ . . . A VERY talented one that is.

Of course, the greatest testament to her talents, to date, has been the fact that she was joined by the immortal King Yellowman on a remix of her big tune ‘One Man Woman’. How such a thing could have possibly occurred is a mystery to me, even a few years back, given King Yellow’s rather reserved recording schedules for the past decade or so, but obviously he saw something in the talents of K-Wida and chose to attach his voice to the tune. Recently the tune was released by the Black Star Foundation, also from out of Holland, via worldwide digital single.

Also, on that front, Lady K-Wida, also via Black Star, did the same for ‘Love Can Make You Blind’, which was reportedly her very first recording.

And on that very same digital release is another big tune, ‘So Much Trouble’.

Certainly part of the allure of K-Wida’s style has to be the fact that the Hindi artist clearly sounds quite a bit, vocally, to Dancehall music Empress, Lady Saw. And although she doesn’t completely SHUN the spiciness of Lady Saw, she also doesn’t take things in an X-rated direction, but instead, she’s certainly come quite a far way in her career with a very nice blend of a powerful old-school Dancehall cadence (thus, the comparisons to Saw) and just an INTELLIGENCE which seams to drape itself in most of her work.

Besides linking with King Yellowman and Osagyefo (who can be seen in the very first video in this post), Lady K-Wida has also done extensive work with the aforementioned famed Black Star Foundation in Holland as well as the venerable Dutch Reggae band, Poormanfriend.

Most of this has been work which was done largely before the start of 2009 and, unfortunately the most recent news I heard about K-Wida was that she had, in fact, retired to a private life and given her talents, that’s pretty fucked up. HOWEVER, whether she has remained or will continue to remain so, certainly shouldn’t and doesn’t take away from the fact that, even in her short time in the business, she managed to make an imprint which can still be felt through her all too malnourished catalog.

So, keep an eye towards the past, and hopefully one towards the future, for the works of Lady K-Wida. Yet another mighty Dutch artists who more than deserves to be heard worldwide.

Lady K-Wida @ Myspace