April 23, 2007 @ 2:56 pm

NEXT: Collie Buddz

Rob Kenner

Blazing from Bermuda to Jamrock and Beyond

The first time Collie Buddz set foot in Jamaica, the 25-year-old Bermudan dancehall singjay rolled to ladies' night at Club Asylum in New Kingston. While he stood at the back of the local hotspot, the selector put on Collie's "Mamacita" and challenged the crowd to guess what the artist looked like. "People was talking about, 'He's a Rastaman' or 'He's a Chineyman,'" Collie remembers with a laugh. But when the pale-faced lyricist stepped on stage? "Everybody gone mad." Unsurprisingly, Dino Delvallie, the veteran A&R rep who signed Collie (real name: Colin Harper) to Sony, had a similar reaction. "Eminem and 50 Cent's attorney [Theo Sedlmayr] said he had a white reggae artist who was hot," says Dino, who has since left Sony to manage Collie. "Being Jamaican, I was ambivalent at first. But when we met, his accent was mad thick, and the first song he played was something that he wrote and produced. I was on the floor." Collie landed the deal even though his breakthrough, "Come Around," an old-fashioned ganja anthem built from a Zap Pow horn sample, was still a year away. "If you're making decent music then people don't really watch the color," says Collie. "But I definitely have a tiny bit more to prove than somebody else might." So how did a youth who looks like David Beckham end up sounding like Buju Banton? Born in New Orleans, Colin and his family lived in Toronto until he was 4, when his father died. Collie and his brother Matthew then moved to their mother's native Bermuda, where they were raised. Matthew established a reggae sound system called Herbalist Supreme. Collie, who earned a degree in audio engineering, soon fell into the family business and began recording. Approval has come quickly for Collie - he's received crucial co-signs from Massive B and David Rodigan, and a "Come Around" remix featuring Busta Rhymes is currently on the radio - but he says his own goals are humble. "I wanna leave my mark in the reggae industry," he says "I'm not looking to be too big with it - just a respected artist in the industry." For Mr. Buddz, finally the respect come around. From VIBE's May 2007 issue, on stands now!