Year 8, Day 147

Hey guys. Today's song is Informer by Snow.

Snow is Darrin O'Brien, a Canadian reggae singer active since 1989. Growing up he was fascinated by the "gangster lifestyle" and got in with an Irish-Canadian group, getting into a lot of trouble. He dropped out of school in the 9th grade, then encountered an influx of Jamaican immigrants in his neighbourhood, which let to his interest in reggae music, After a brief stint in jail he befriended a Jamaican DJ named Marvin Prince, who helped him refine his sound and actually gave him the Snow moniker, which apparently stands for Super Notorious Outrageous Whiteboy. He gave tapes of his stuff out to a lot of people, but as a white male toting a Jamaican sound, he didn't get much interest. In 1988 he was arrested wrongfully for attempted murder, and while he served time until he got acquitted he did schooling and wrote music, including this song. Meanwhile Prince show his music to a rap star named M.C. Shan, who then introduced Snow to music producers, leading to him being signed in 1991. They quickly recorded his album and it was released in 1993, with this song becoming a huge hit. There was a lot of disputes over the money and credit for that album though between all those involved. He's released five more albums since then, with the most recent from 2002. He has been doing singles since then, working with the likes of Daddy Yankee and actually in 2020 he pretty much sweeped the Latin Billboard Music Awards categories he was nominated in. So even though I only know this song from him, he is apparently still relevant and making music so go look that up if you're interested.

Peace.