Jamaican and world-renowned Dance Hall artist Vybz Kartel says his days of bleaching his skin to make him look lighter are over.
Speaking on Hot 97 radio this week, the legendary performer said that he had reviewed the practice and had decided to end it after several years.
“I mean, in hindsight, it definitely had to do with self-love, but on the other hand, while I was doing it, my mind wasn’t telling me that. My mind was telling me, ‘I am doing this to show my tattoos’…I got a lot of tattoos. But looking back, it was just as a black man, sometimes we have those issues but I would never bleach again though.” The Jamaica Observer ran the interview this week.
Fresh from a recent performance in The Bahamas where patrons complained about substandard organization and management, Kartel says he is making other changes and is drastically cutting back on alcohol usage and cigarette smoking as he prepares to marry and settle down with his longtime girlfriend Sidem Öztürk and raise “Turkish children.”
Real name, Adidja Palmer, Kartel, 48, appears to be having a personal epiphany in the months after he was freed along with three co-defendants last summer by a Jamaican appeals court of the murder of an associate more than a decade ago
He spent about 13 years behind bars amid failing health when the British Privy Council, to which he had appealed, had asked the local court to rule on his case given jury tampering and other allegations.
Now, he is not only trying to deal with personal ailments but is also preparing for a Caribbean tour that will include already sold-out performances in The Bahamas. Kartel is set to perform in several Caribbean destinations, including Trinidad, British Virgin Islands, Barbados, Guyana, and St. Kitts.
He has said that he is also eyeing summer concerts in the US, having recently received a visa, and possibly the UK and Canada.
