Music: Sudden Call Leads to Usher Dancehall Date for Jamaican producer Don Corleon

-Jamaica Observer

PRODUCER Donovan “Don Corleone” Bennett recently completed a dancehall track with Usher(pictured below). The song is titled Pressure and was recorded at the AfterMaster Recording & Mastering Studios in Los Angeles.

Bennett explained how the collaboration came about.

“I got a call from Rico Love (an American producer) one night asking me if I could come to a studio in Hollywood, California and be prepared to work. I went to the studio and to my surprise, Usher was in the studio. So, Rico said let me play something for you and he played me this demo that he did. It has only a few keys on it, so he then asked if I could make it fire with that dancehall sound. I made it on spot and it took me like five minutes to complete it,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

According to Bennett, Usher liked what he heard and insisted they recorded the song immediately. Rico Love suggested they add a Jamaican female vocalist to the production and Bennett came up with an artiste whom he has worked with recently.

“I cannot disclose her name due to confidentiality reasons. We recorded her the next day at Hitmaker Studio in Kingston under the guidance of my signed producer/songwriter/artiste Matthew 'Keely Keys' Keaveny. When Usher and Rico heard it, they both loved it,” he said.

Asked what the opportunity of working with Usher meant for him, Bennett said: “Well, I'm the only Jamaican producer that worked with him. This is a big achievement in my book, to be working with an artiste of his calibre. He's also one of my all-time favourite artistes as well... He's a very humble, talented and a cool guy.”

With  over 43 million albums sold, Usher is one of the biggest selling artistes in contemporary music. He began his career in the mid-1990s with the Antonio “LA” Reid and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds' LaFace Records label.