Shalli shows her love for music

Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer

Though it is home to a massive Caribbean community, Canada has never produced a major reggae or dancehall act with Jamaican lineage. It is something that has not gone unnoticed by Toronto-based singer Shalli, whose sound is strongly influenced by her West Indian heritage.

Show My Love, her latest recording, is a shout-out to those roots. It was co-produced by Jamaican Bobby Chin out of south Florida and High Grade Productions, a company based in the United States Virgin Islands.

The dancehall song was recorded in English, French and Spanish, a deliberate strategy to make inroads in diverse markets.

"This song is not just about showing love, we want to reach as wide an audience as possible," Shalli told The Gleaner.

After performing on the hotel circuit in Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia, Shalli returned to Toronto and has kept busy in the recording studio. Prior to Show My Love, she cut a series of dancehall-flavoured songs including Feeling Inside, Love Is and Down In Jamaica.

She said the rise of platinum-selling artistes with Caribbean ties such as Sean Kingston, Rihanna and Sean Paul has been a major inspiration. So too, the success of American and British bands like Blondie and UB40 on the Billboard charts in the 1980s covering reggae standards.

"That's the formula I'm looking at. I want to mix all elements I grew up listening to make a breakthrough," she said.

Born Shalli Shillingford to a Dominican father and Jamaican mother, Shalli said her father was a percussionist in several bands that played the Toronto scene. He was big into Latin music while her mother was naturally drawn to reggae.

Influences

While modern soul singers Luther Vandross and Chaka Khan are among her biggest influences, Shalli recalls the Jamaican sound never being far away.

"The West Indian community is predominantly Jamaican so I grew up around reggae and dancehall," she said.

Some of reggae's biggest names including Studio One keyboard maestro Jackie Mittoo, singers Alton Ellis and Leroy Sibbles, moved to Toronto in the early 1970s but Jamaican music never took off as it did in New York City and London.

Dancehall and hip hop acts have come out of Canada in recent years, but with the exception of Irish Canadian deejay Snow, they have failed to match the triumphs of pop acts like Nelly Furtado and the latest teen sensation, Justin Bieber.

Getting a foothold in the tough Jamaican market is Shalli's priority, with a video for Show My Love currently in rotation on local cable television.