Tempo Gets Bahamian Flavour

The video for "We Need Peace," the hit song by Landlord (Orlando Miller), is now getting regular play on MTV’s Tempo after making its debut earlier this month.

And it is a welcome signal that perhaps even more music by Bahamian bands and musicians will be represented on what has quickly become a very popular channel among lovers of reggae, soca and culture music.

"The video started playing on March 3rd at 9 a.m. and now they are killing it," Landlord told Arts and Entertainment in an interview.

It’s an event that has been years in the making, starting with the release of the single back in 2004.

Landlord, 31, who is well known on the gospel music circuit, decided to record "We Need Peace" after a visit to Jamaica with his pastor, Dr. Myles Munroe, put him in touch with singer Prodigal Son and one of his producers, Trevor "Skatta" Bonnick.

The song was not typical of Landlord’s previous work.

"It’s not a gospel song but a universal song that reaches every culture, every colour, every creed, where people could understand the message of peace," says Landlord.

In the end, Landord recorded "We Need Peace" with Jamaican reggae artists Luciano and Alkatraz, and Solo, a Bahamian singer.

That single was described by one reviewer as "the stand-out track" on the album that goes by the same name.

The "We Need Peace" album, which also features Prodigal Son and Dr. Myles Munroe, was released in 2004 in Jamaica, but Landlord had no idea how successful it had become until he was surfing the Internet months later and learned that the single was topping the international charts.

"I thought it was just going to be a local distribution," Landlord recalls. "One day I was on line and I put in Landlord and Luciano and I was shocked to see it was all over Germany, France, Japan and China."

"It was mashing up the European charts, mashing up artists like Morgan Heritage, John Legend and Buju Banton. It started out as number 18, then climbed to 15 and then eventually to five."

"We Need Peace" also topped the reggae charts at number one in Japan, and was in the Top 10 on the Internet’s Music Media charts.

In January 2006, while at a conference in Savannah, Georgia, Landlord got the news that his "We Need Peace" video had been chosen for rotation on Tempo.

"At one point I thought, how did I get here?" said Landlord.

If you ask him, Orlando Miller will tell you that he arrived at where he is today because he listened to a "message from God."

But it was message that he was not always listening out for.

Miller grew up off Andros Avenue in the over-the-hill area known as the Grove. His brother-in-law, Patrick Knowles, put the first microphone in his hands, but Miller says that he always knew he had the gift of music.

"I would be cleaning up and I would always be singing. If I was walking, I would be singing," he says. "Music was always in me, no matter what I was doing. It is everything, my purpose, my life."

At the age of seven, Miller wrote his first song. And years later, as a teenager, he was encouraged by his brother-in-law who recognised his talent and booked him to perform at local dances and parties.

As for the name Landlord, Miller got that nickname from his childhood friends, who would watch in amazement as he performed back flips in the neighbourhood’s streets without shoes.

"My friends would always wear shoes [while doing back flips] because the road would hurt their feet. They were scared to do it without shoes on so that’s how I got the name Landlord, symbolising the lord of the land," he explains.

In 1995, Landlord says he decided to change his life and started attending Bahamas Faith Ministries, where he met pastors Dave Burrows and Carlos Reid, who were using music to get the Lord’s message to others.

"That’s when I started to use my music effectively," he says.

In 2000 he recorded his first single, "Seek Ye First" and a year later released his first album, "Never Forget Where You Came From," featuring Dr. Myles Munroe, the senior pastor at BFM.

It was with Dr. Munroe that he toured the world, performing in Africa, where he says he sang to 180,000 people, Mexico, Tulsa, Bermuda, Barbados, Jacksonville, and eventually to Jamaica, where he hooked up with the artists and producers that would help take his music to another level.

Although Landlord is generally associated with the gospel music scene and his lyrics could definitely make the spiritual category, he describes his style as "culture."

"My music is universal. It transcends out of the church and in church and is played in both places," he says. "I don’t want to put myself in a box because I want to reach everybody not just one [group]."

Landord now spends a good chunk of his time in Jamaica, working very closely with his Jamaican producer Bonnick, a former lead singer for the popular reggae group Inner Circle and a member of Ruffkutt, Beenie Man’s personal band.

He chose to work in Jamaica because he considers it the "reggae specialist". "When you want reggae you go to the reggae specialists - Jamaica, when you want soca you would go to the soca specialists."

His first album was recorded in New Providence and while Landlord thought it was "pretty good," it wasn’t exactly what he was looking for.

And it’s a move that is obviously paying off for Landlord, who is scheduled to play in Europe, the U.S. and Canada in the upcoming months, along with working on projects with a number of well-known Jamaican artists.

As far as his immediate focus, Landlord is working to push the "We Need Peace" album on the secular music market.

The exposure on Tempo is sure to help that effort, as well as encouraging other local artists to tap into the music video resource and show the rest of the world what Bahamian musicians have to offer.