Dutch reggae and dancehall producer ChevoBeatz returns from a break with new FyaVerse, Afrobeats, and Cabo Verde projects
Some producers disappear because the ideas dry up. ChevoBeatz disappeared because his son needed a father more than the internet needed another single. Now the Dutch reggae and dancehall producer, born Cheville Samoedj, is back in the studio and stepping forward on his own timeline, with a run of cross-cultural collaborations that stretches wider than anything in his catalogue so far. For a producer who built his name fusing sounds from opposite ends of the globe, the return is less a comeback than a continuation, resumed the moment the timing was finally right.
The gap was deliberate, and he does not dress it up.
I got a son, he’s four now, and I had to be there for him, every time, to help him grow,” ChevoBeatz says of the quieter period. “Being a father comes first. That’s the priority before anything else, including the music”
The pause was never a retreat from the work so much as a reordering of it. Throughout, the messages kept coming, fans and fellow artists asking when the next record would land, and that steady pull from people who had not forgotten him helped shape the shape of his return.
A Producer Built on Border-Crossing
To understand why the anticipation matters, you have to understand how ChevoBeatz operates. Born in the village of Velp in the eastern Netherlands to Indian-Surinamese parents, with roots he traces to Bihar, Calcutta, and Gujarat, he grew up inside a genuine melting pot of traditions before falling for Jamaican dancehall in his youth. That heritage is the engine of his sound.
As the founder of ChevoProductions, he has spent years pulling reggae, dancehall, hip-hop, and more into the same room without flattening what makes each one distinct. He also runs a second company, ChevoMedia, working in web development and app design, a detail that says something about his temperament: he builds things properly rather than rushing them out.
That instinct for finding a rhythm’s rightful home has produced real results. His breakthrough came through his partnership with Jamaican deejay FyaVerse, the artist Fabian Wayne Edwards, whom he met in Kingston in 2019. Their 2023 single “Shatta Gyal“ reached number one on Jamaica’s Hype TV chart, entered the Billboard Argentina Hot 100 the following year, and earned an Instagram cosign from superproducer Scott Storch. The follow-up “Time’s Dread“ sharpened the message, taking on corruption and police conduct, topping Jamaica’s Fiwi Choice Top 10 and landing a Best Reggae Act nomination at the HDP Music Awards. “Corruption” arrived this past February, extending the streak.
Wider Nets, New Sounds
What is coming next pushes the map outward again. Reggae remains the foundation, but ChevoBeatz is now moving into Afrobeats and a Cabo Verde-influenced sound, both drawing on the same instinct that has always defined him: take a rhythm from one part of the world and find where it actually belongs. Featured artists on those records are not yet confirmed publicly, though he describes them as names people will recognize once revealed.
Closer to release is a new project with FyaVerse built around old-school reggae and hip-hop, joined by a UK artist ChevoBeatz recently discovered and is bringing into the fold for the first time. He has also been building a connection with an Indian artist, another example of the same pattern that runs through nearly everything he touches, an ear for talent outside the places people expect to find it. Coverage in DancehallMag, The Jamaica Star, and the Jamaica Observer has followed him from a home base few would expect to produce this kind of music at all.
None of it changes what he says drove the last few years more than any release schedule. “The music will always be there,” he says. “My son needed me first, and now we’re both ready for what’s next.”
