Earlan Bartley (born December 19, 1993), better known as Alkaline, is a Jamaican Dancehall and Reggae musician from Kingston, Jamaica.
Early life
Earlan was born in Kingston's Victoria Jubilee Hospital. He attended Ardenne High School and studied Media and Communication at the University of the West Indies. During his time in high school is when he started to have the determination for music. With the support of his close friends he visited local recording studios after school whenever he had the chance.
Career
2011–2014: Early career
Bartley began recording at the age of 16 and using the stage name Alkaline. When he was still in school, he made songs like "Proof", "Mi Love Woman", "Reflections" and "Missing You" creating long-term predictions and expressing his teenage experiences while making music videos on school grounds and in the streets of Jamaica with his close friends.
He eventually began working with Notnice Records and UIM Records and became popular in Jamaica with a series of singles like "123", "High Suh", "Bruk Out", "Things Mi Love" and "Live Life" but the single he was very well known for was "Move Mountains", He went on to feature those singles on multiple EPs and Mixtapes.
2015–2016: Breakthrough with New level Unlocked
In mid 2015 Alkaline pushed himself to the international market with his hit singles "On Fleek (Love Yuh Everything)" and "Ride on Me (Remix)" featuring Sean Kingston while consistently working on his debut album New Level Unlocked.
He released two other hit singles that year which was "ATM" on September 30, 2015, and "Champion Boy" on October 30, 2015, which were both featured on the New Level Unlocked Album. The album was released on March 25, 2016, under DJ Frass Records, going on to top the Billboard Reggae Charts in April which stood for 18 weeks, making him the first dancehall deejay to have a number one album on the charts in five years. New Level Unlocked was selected at number 3 in Billboard'''s "10 Best Reggae Albums of 2016". He also had multiple hit singles that year with "Formula", "My Side of The Story", "Block and Delete", "After All", "12 PM (Living Good), "Spoil You", "Extra Lesson" and "Badness It Name" . In September 2016 he was nominated for a MOBO Award for the second time in the Best Reggae Act category. His "Champion Boy" single was used in an advertising campaign for the Red Stripe Premier League. With the crew name Vendetta which he uses to categorize his fans, made the launch of a clothing line considered as Detta Gear. He was also featured on a remix of Shaggy's "That Love" on November 11, 2016.2017–2018: New Rules Alkaline was considered one of the young hot acts in the Dancehall space, not only because of his extreme talent but his huge controversial relevancy. For a certain period of time, he was very distant from Jamaica focusing more on the international scene. Over time there were critics claiming that he switched up on Jamaica given the fact that he didn't perform for a long time in his home country.
After his album tour, on March 25, 2017 Alkaline decided to prove the critics wrong by creating his own show called New Rules Festival which he brought to his home country. It quickly became one of the most anticipated shows of the year with artists like Mavado, Shaggy, I-Octane, Tarrus Riley, Jahmiel and many more at Jamaica's national stadium car park. It boasted one of the biggest turnouts on a Jamaican stage show and many attendees would go on to say "New Rules" was one of Dancehall's greatest shows ever and would definitely go down in history.
In July of that year, Alkaline attended Jamaica's Biggest annual stage show, Reggae Sumfest at which he hadn't performed since 2014; making a huge come back as one of the main performers as he featured the legendary Dean Fraser. On September 8, 2018 Alkaline brought his second New Rules show to Queens, New York in Amazura.