Priceless By. GONGLIGHT MANAGEMENT
You may not have heard of him until now, but Priceless, a BVI-born artist who has won many awards on the local scene, has continued to perfect his craft and is expanding his reach throughout the Caribbean. Now, Priceless is enjoying a new level of exposure with his latest single called "Butterflies", which features one of the USVI's top Reggae artists, Pressure Busspipe.
One don't simply secure a collaboration with Pressure; first, you need the right song, a level of dedication to your craft that is evident, and of course the right channels to make it happen. One may call it luck, but for Priceless, this new level of recognition was the result of hard, incessant work.
Before venturing out to become a soloist in 2016, the 26-year-old HipHop artist was part of three BVI rap groups, all of which were said to be dominant. In 2009 — at the young age of 15 — Priceless won 9 awards at the Top 7 @ 7 Award Show while a member of a group that was called "Country Boyz". Priceless also stood out as a member of the group because of his unique voice and style.
Eleven years and multiple hits later, Priceless now finds himself with a hit song that features one of the territory's most lauded recording artists.
During an interview with the Consortium Sunday, Priceless said the inspiration behind Butterflies came as a result of the catchy beat. "I got a feeling from it that it needed to be an old-school fusion with Afrobeats; one of those songs that you could groove to," he said. Buy his music here. (Model in video snippet is A'Yana "DJ Lady Mix" Phillips.)
On the collaboration with Pressure, Priceless said his management, Gonglight Management, had said he could secure a feature with the Reggae star but he would have to work extremely hard for it. With Butterflies, Priceless saw an opening and seized the moment. "When I was finished with this track, I could hear Pressure on it," he said.
Being an established artist, Pressure for a while now has been helping younger VI singers boost their potential of success by featuring on their songs —from St. Croix's Kruziano to Tortola's Monéa, the latter whose career has skyrocketed with big collaborations such as the remix of her song "Inna De World" featuring Dexta Daps.
"The first time I saw him perform I knew that he was very talented," Pressure said of Priceless during an interview Thursday. "He's not afraid of the stage, he's not afraid of performing in front of a lot of people. He has good crowd participation and that really impressed me."
On helping younger VI artists, Pressure said, "When I was coming up in the Virgin Islands doing my music, I never had no artist who left the Virgin Islands and came back to help us bridge that gap. For me, I feel a responsibility to my community and those that really don't have that support. All the tribulations and stress that I went through in the business to reach where I am, I could at least help make it easier for other youths."
Giving advice to upcoming artists, the venerable Reggae standout said, "Just keep working. For the most part you have to know this is what you really want because to choose it, it has to be in your heart.
"You don't make money at first and a lot of people get thrown off because they love to do music, they want to do music, but with the day-to-day living, they can't survive and do music. So they have to find other ways to make money and then they get caught up and years pass and nothing is done with the music. So for me, I made the sacrifices and there are youths out there willing to make the sacrifices to push through. It takes a lot; and sacrificing is not an overnight thing so that plays a major part as well when it comes to me working with artists."
