Rik Rok Krista Henry, Staff Reporter
When Shaggy's hit song It Wasn't Me was released in 2001, it catapulted a then amateur singer Rickardo Ducent into the mega star light. Years later Ducent a.k.a Rik Rok is back on his own steam with a new label and a new album.
According to Rik Rok, contrary to the belief that he had retired from the business after his song Her Eyes, he has in fact been very busy working on his music.
"Me and a couple of friends started a label called 'Moba'. I think that was two years ago. Right now there's me and Prince Midas on the label," Rok told The Gleaner.
While it hasn't been an easy road, being new in the business, Rok had a lot to learn about starting a company and forming his own identity.
Experimenting with different flavours Rok is ready to promote Jamaica, "In different ways I want to promote Jamaica, yeah we love dancehall but we love some pop, reggae and more. Instead of subjecting ourselves to someone else's pocket and taste, we decided to do it ourselves. We haven't commercially released anything, but we have begun promoting ourselves".
Although his debut solo album is not yet titled, Rik Rok hopes it will be hitting the music scene next month.
"The album is about a lot of people's business. It isn't necessarily personal, life in general, I listen to people's stories and write from that. My songs tend to be more about relationships, that's what the market expects from me," he stated. While this is the singer's first album to be released, Rok also had an album with Big Yard that has not been released.
Yet he and the Big Yard crew are still close, having got a lot of business advice from them. He and Shaggy are also still good friends.
"I'm hoping to do more collaborations, so far there is only Prince Midas on my album. People have asked why I haven't done a song wid Shaggy, but we're both so busy it's been difficult to collaborate. I did write with him on his project, and we write together; there's always chemistry. Shaggy is like family, but I'm branching out, I'm grown up. I've always wanted to go solo," he said.
