Before diving into the tracklist, it is essential to understand the machinery behind the Iyaz - Replay Album. Iyaz (born Keidran Jones) was a college student in the British Virgin Islands when he caught the ear of Sean Kingston. Kingston, who had already revolutionized the pop landscape with his 2007 hit “Beautiful Girls,” heard Iyaz’s music on MySpace. Impressed by his melodic sense and clean vocal delivery, Kingston immediately signed Iyaz to his label, Time Is Money, and introduced him to the legendary producer J.R. Rotem.
Rotem—known for his work with Rihanna, Jason Derulo, and Sean Kingston—saw in Iyaz the perfect pop product: a safe, charming, island-infused artist who could deliver infectious hooks without the heavy edge of his contemporaries. The result was the Iyaz - Replay Album, officially titled Replay, released on August 7, 2010, under Beluga Heights Records and Epic Records.
A 47-second vocal harmony piece. It’s fleeting and almost gospel-tinged, but it feels like filler designed to stretch the runtime to 40 minutes. Iyaz - Replay Album
(For an exact, complete track list and song lengths, consult the album packaging or a reliable music database.)
When discussing the soundtrack of the late 2000s and early 2010s, few debut singles were as inescapable as Iyaz’s “Replay.” But while the titular track became a pop culture phenomenon, the full body of work—the Iyaz - Replay Album—offers a fascinating snapshot of an era where island rhythms, Auto-Tuned harmonies, and breezy, feel-good lyrics dominated the Top 40. Released at the peak of the “ringtone rap” and dance-pop crossover, this album remains a cult classic for millennials who grew up on MySpace and early YouTube. Before diving into the tracklist, it is essential
A flirty, island-hop track. The hook is repetitive ("Ok, ok, ok"), which makes it catchy but shallow. It sounds like a demo that was rushed to completion to hit the tracklist requirement.
Before the album existed, there was the man: Keidran Jones. Growing up in the Cayman Islands (and later the British Virgin Islands), Iyaz was a college student studying graphic design. He wasn’t a street rapper or a trained vocalist in the classical sense; he was a kid with a microphone and a laptop, posting covers and original songs on MySpace. Impressed by his melodic sense and clean vocal
That is where producer J.R. Rotem found him. Rotem was on a hot streak in the late 2000s, having produced massive hits for Rihanna ("SOS"), Jason Derulo ("Whatcha Say"), and Rick Ross ("The Boss"). Rotem heard Iyaz’s raw, island-inflected voice and saw a vehicle for a new sound: lush, melody-driven pop with a slight dancehall bounce.
The result was "Replay." It was written by Rotem, Iyaz, and Jason Derulo (who was still an emerging songwriter at the time). The song’s hook—"Shawty's like a melody in my head / That I can't keep out / Got me singin' like..."—was impossibly sticky. Built on a sample of the video game The Legend of Zelda (the "Song of Storms")? No, that’s a myth. It’s actually built on a similar synth arpeggio, but the video game aesthetic was deeply embedded in its DNA.
When the single dropped in mid-2009, it exploded. It hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 (held off the top spot by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ "Empire State of Mind"). It went 3x Platinum in the US. By the time the full Replay album dropped in June 2010, Iyaz was already a global teen idol.