Ini Kamoze began his career in 1983 with "Trouble Yuh a Trouble Mi". Since then he has always been moving at his own cool pace, setting lyrical fashions rather than following them. Late in 1992, Ini and his longtime friend Sipoh, linked up with Salaam Remi, a gifted young New York DJ who has blazed a trail of schorching reggae-hip hop remixes. "Here Comes the Hotstepper," the multi-warhead bomb Remi and Ini had dropped, blew up way bigger than anything either had ever done before, simultaneously ruling the pop and R&B charts and setting off a six label war for the lyrical gangster. The song's success proves once and for all that you can't have too many hooks: the "Heartbeat" rhythm track, the Na-nana-na-na" chorus of "Land of 1,000 Dances," the sing-along murderer chant used by reggae lyricists from Lady Ann up to Shabba. But then again, one voice still got to make them all work.

Ini feels that reggae music contain a whole heap of elements. So it is easy for reggae artists to cross over. He has always been good at breaking down barriers. His original "Hotstepper" has become a classic in the dancehall.

Kamoze says that the hotstepper program is about "intelligent resistance. We don't bow to the system," he explains, "or to anyone or to anything. The hotstepper is a youth the presidents and the prime ministers and the kings have to fear, and have to respect, and have to look out for." He also states that the murderer chant is ambiguous, "We're certainly not talking about killing people, although we're not talking as if that's impossible either. There's power in that word murderer , you can't hear that and don't feel suppen. But artists are not walking around and shooting people; this is a different interpretation." He says that a youth like him can kill people with his mind.