February 2013 anticipates the release of their second studio album "Free The Universe". "We wanted to do something that was our take on Dancehall music; what we think that Dancehall music and Caribbean music should sound like in 2013 and beyond.....Dancehall has a culture where it absorbs everything around and kind of spits out its own version it. It's constantly changing and so dynamic and I think that our music represents that as well you know," Jillionare shared. So far Major Lazer has released two singles from the album namely 'Get Free' featuring Amber Coffman and 'Jah No Partial' with Johnny Osbourne. The third single will be Bumaye featuring Busy Signal for which they came to the island to shoot the video.
Jillionaire revealed that "It's like a 80s/90s inspired video, kinda like Murder She Wrote style," making reference to Chaka Demus and Pliers' hit record. The video was directed by renown Jamaican director Jay Will and features several popular Jamaican dancers in the Downtown Kingston area.
The Trinidad native told Jamaicansmusic.com that, "The new album is going to be really fun because there are a couple of all kind of club records on there and then there's a handful of proper dancehall records and a handful of proper reggae records as well."
To accomplish this compilation several artistes make guest appearance on the album, among them Dancehall's heavy hitters, which Jillionaire points out, "We've enlisted a lot of collaborators; Vybz Kartel is on there, Santigold, Elephant Man, there's a Beenie Man focal on there, Ward 21, Shaggy, Winter Gordon. So, we have quite a handful that we worked with to help establish that sound so I think people will like it."
In terms production, most of the songs are exclusively produced by the team however producers such as Party Squad from Amsterdam, Dutch natives Flexican and FS Green as well as dubstep producer Flux Pavilion also contributed to tracks on the album.
Major Lazer is currently on their fall tour where fans are given a first taste of what to expect from "Free The Universe". "We wanted to create a live show that included elements of Caribbean stage show performances.....and apply them to dance music. So we have a light show and live video that we use, two dancers that we travel with and Walshy Fire is our emcee. We bring a very high level energy every night and we've been lucky to be able to take our show all over the world; all across Europe, all across North America, Australia, Asia and this year we're going to take it to the Caribbean," Jillionaire expressed.
Befittingly, their very first Caribbean show will take place here in Jamaica. To this he commented, "We are really looking forward to that, to doing our thing here in Jamaica where it all started so to kind of bring it full circle," further adding, " I think even the biggest cynics will be pleasantly surprised because we are really proud of what we do and we're really excited to be here and I think that most of the kids are excited to have us here. .....It's kinda cool to know we have a fan base here so it's going to be such a good feeling to actually give back to them and interact with them."
The show is slated to take place on January 21st at The University of The West Indies' Student Union. In closing Jillionaire articulated, "Everybody out there who is a fan, is not a fan, is curious about it- maybe heard about it, wants to know about it- just come out to UWI.....have a good time, we're going to have a good time so we want everyone to come out and have a good time as well."
The album, 'Free The Universe' and the video for 'Bumaye' is expected to be released mid February.
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