Jack-of-all-trades Daine Macklimore reviving dormant musical passion
Published:Saturday | September 20, 2025 | 12:06 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Daine Macklimore, a versatile jack-of-all-trades who has garnered experience in various fields from hospitality to tiling over the past 20 years, is returning to his old youthful passion of recording music, an avenue he revisited while expanding his construction business in Africa in 2024.
“I have always been a builder, because I built a career in hospitality and then in construction. Now I am building something that has always lived in me, that being music,” said 41-year-old Macklimore, the founder of the Montego Bay-based Impulse Tiling and Construction Company.
“Music has been part of my life for a very long time, because most of my family members have been involved in music, including my father singing in a music group in the 1970s and one of my cousins being a founding member of the Chrysolites music group. I always had the passion for music, and that passion has always been burning in me,” he explained.
Macklimore got his start in music singing on several choirs after migrating to the United States at age 14. However, his first experience in an actual recording studio came in 2005, courtesy of a friend who was a studio engineer.
MUSIC CAREER
“One day I went to the studio and I wanted to do a ‘Happy Birthday’ tune for my girlfriend at the time. My friend, the studio engineer, said to me, ‘I like what you’re doing with your vocals, and I would love if you could lay some vocals for me.’ We started laying tracks, and I started recording tracks and writing songs almost every day, and in 2005, that was where I did my first two tracks,” recalled Macklimore.
Music as a potential career path eventually got shelved for a few years, during which time Macklimore worked as a call centre agent, became a trained tiler in 2019, and then worked as a sales executive at Montego Bay’s Iberostar Hotel in 2020. He eventually launched Impulse Tiling in May that year.
It was while pursuing business prospects in Ghana in 2024 that Macklimore found an avenue to record music and revive his dormant lyrical passion. Since then, while still managing Impulse Tiling’s operations from Ghana, he has released tracks, such as ‘Win It’ and ‘Save Me’ and has also done a modernised take on a track, ‘Tough Decision’, he recorded in 2005.
“It was a dream of mine to come somewhere in Africa, and seeing that Ghana has striking similarities to Jamaica, I said that Ghana is the perfect place to come to. Coming to Ghana now, meeting people and taking in the culture, it is very similar to Jamaican culture, so I felt right at home, and I started meeting people who were into music, so I said I would check it out,” said Macklimore, who is now planning a West Africa music tour in 2026.
“I am going to follow my dream and passion and just let it ooze out, because life is about being authentic to yourself. These songs are not just about where I have been, but they are also about where I am going,” Macklimore added.
“I have had to start over more than once, but whether I am building with bricks or with beats, the goal is the same, to create something lasting.”