Portmore, St. Catherine has earned the nickname “Jamaica’s Hollywood” for good reason walk down the wrong street and you might bump into the birthplace of half the island’s reggae and dancehall stars.
Add Rati Sayless to that list. Born Jamar Kelly in Braeton Phase 2, Portmore, on December 1st, he spent most of his career going by Ratigan before settling on the name he goes by now. Either way, he’s the latest out of that neighborhood making noise in Jamaican music.
Music found him at Camperdown High School in Kingston, though not in the way most teachers would’ve wanted. “While attending high school, I was known as a trouble-maker because of the continuous disturbances, beating on the desks in classrooms,” he says. That energy found a proper outlet once he started performing at school concerts his popularity grew, his confidence grew with it, and by the time he left school he already knew what he wanted to do with his life.
He started writing, building up a stack of songs, but kept running into the same wall: he couldn’t find beats that matched what was in his head. So he made his own. “I started to record my own demos and did my mixtapes in order to let people hear my talent,” he says. That hustle got him noticed veteran dancehall deejay Mad Cobra, who’s from the same community, caught wind of what he was doing and stepped in to help with promotion. In 2003, Cobra introduced him to Rohan “Snowcone” Fuller, and he cut his first professional track, as Ratigan, on the Applause riddim

The song didn’t blow up. He kept working anyway  recording and producing for artists like Gyptian, Spice, L.U.S.T, Terry Linen, Bascom X, Anthony B, and Mad Cobra himself, among others.
By 2008 he was producing most of Mad Cobra’s new album, and that same year he decided to step back in front of the mic himself. Out of that came the self-produced “Horny She Horny” and “Let Them Grow,” a heavier track tackling violence against children. In 2009, people started paying attention a young artist and producer bringing something different to the table.
2010 found him touring the U.S. as Ratigan, picking up new fans at every stop. Since then he’s stepped into a new chapter under the name Rati Sayless, carrying that same stage presence and producer’s ear into whatever comes next.
Right now the streets in Portmore are talking about him, and with an ear that can work across genres, it’s not hard to see why. People are waiting on that debut album. Not a bad spot to be in.