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Adijah Palmer attended Calabar High School in Kingston but was expelled. He completed his studies at Tutorial College, a private school in Kingston, Jamaica and graduated with English, History, Geography, and Literature at CXC levels. The young Adijah was exposed to a wide variety of music by two uncles who were aspiring musicians themselves. Every weekend he would listen to new musical offerings on his uncle's old component set, ranging from Sam Cooke to country and western ballads to Ninja Man, who became one of his musical foes. At the age of 10 his favorite artists included Papa San, Charlie Chaplin, Will Smith and KRS-1, all of whose lyrics he would write down and memorize, performing them later for the entertainment of friends. He is also known as "Adijah Di Teacha" According to Wikipedia
Early Career
On weekends Adijah would practice on neighborhood sound systems Soul Signal and Electric Force. In 1993, Adijah, now in his late teens, recorded his first single Love Fat Woman for Alvin Reid's One Heart Label under the name Adi Banton, a name he chose in tribute to Buju Banton who was one of his role models. He recorded several more tracks for local producers until 1996 when he and two friends, Mr Lee and a singer called Escobar, decided to form a group. One night, after watching a movie about Pablo Escobar and his infamous cartel, Adijah came up with a name for his trio: Vibes Cartel. Unfortunately some time after, the group broke up due to internal frictions leaving Adijah again to continue alone. Adijah choose to keep the name of the group changing the C to K in Kartel and adopting the moniker VYBZ KARTEL.
Career
In 1998, Kartel made an appearance at the Champions in Action stage show, held in his hometown of Portmore. His performance was praised, and he was soon offered a way into the music industry. Fellow artist Bounty Killer described him as having a lot of potential.
Vybz Kartel’s new role as Killer’s protégé attracted attention from the public, he then progressed to collaborations with Bounty Killer such as Gal Clown and Girls Like Mine (Liquid Riddim). He then released on his own early hits such as Gun Clown, Guns Like Mine (Trafalga Riddim), Badman (Panty Raid Riddim), Bus Mi Gun Like Nuttn, Most High (Mexican Riddim) and War Organizer (Clappas Riddim). He also had a string of collaborations with Wayne Marshall, such as New Millennium (Mad Antz Riddim), Why (Krazy Riddim) and Why Again (Good To Go Riddim). This debut led to Vybz Kartel being crowned Deejay Of The Year at Stone Love’s 30th Anniversary, 2002.
Kartel has already had several collaborations with international hip-hop and pop stars. In terms of singles sold, he has had the second-best year on the reggae charts for 2003 (outsold only by Elephant Man) and has released 2 albums for UK/US based label Greensleeves Records Ltd. He was also featured twice on the Def Jamaica project, and nominated for Source, VIBE and UK MOBO awards (although his MOBO nominations, along with those of Beenie Man, Elephant Man and Sizzla were
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