Darren Anthony Badal aka Jungle

Darren was born in Tabaquite, and at the age of sixteen (16) years old he began his career in singing and writing music.  ‘Supa chile’ better known by his hit song “Ambush” in the Kiskidee Caravan,  was his mentor, who was the first to acknowledge the talent of 16 year old ‘jungle’,known as righteous

Darren was encouraged to enter ‘Party Time’, a local talent show hosted by O’Brien Haynes.  He was placed first in the preliminaries but had to withdraw from the competition.

Not forgetting his music, he worked hard as a farmer planting vegetables in order to save money for a trip to Jamaica to follow his dream of being a renowned reggae artist.  He did this and gained the respect of icons Sizzla, Capleton, Jah Cure and Jah Mason.  With just $300 TT spending money, this was a big step for someone just seventeen (17) years old.

‘Jungle’ kept true to his music and kept writing and singing new songs.  In 2004 he met with his fellow artist who encouraged him to write a ‘soca’.  Taking the advice he did just that with a song named ‘rolling back’ also known as ‘wild like an animal’ which was produced by KMC.  The song became a big hit and ‘Jungle’ alongside KMC performed with Machel and Xtatic for that year.  The year after, KMC formed a band “Made in Trinidad” which was later renamed “Red, White and Black”. Jungle was there was from the get go and became a well known artist in this band.

Since then ‘Jungle’ has recorded over 35 songs and written over 125 songs.  He performed in many countries including Germany, Toronto, Miami, New York, Cayman Islands and Grenada just to name a few. In 2010 jungle stepped out of the shadows of red white and black and made his solo debut…in 2012 he performed in both soca and reggae events in Europe and is currently recording new material, including an Indian movie classic collaboration with chutney stars Rick Ramoutar and Reshma Ramlal. Upcoming works also include collabs with German reggae star Cornadoor and producers Nick Poncho and Pascal Barro of Sweden and Switzerland respectively. On the 23rd april 2013 the collaboration with Cornadoor Entitled ‘Never Let You Go’ reached number 1 on the German reggae charts. Jungle became the first artist from Trinidad to reach on such a chart.