“Reggae is worldwide,” says Collie Buddz, and he should know. Since 2007, when his full-length debut album entered Billboard’s Reggae chart at No. 1, the Bermudan reggae artist has toured worldwide up to 11 months per year.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, reggae’s huge in Japan. It’s also rather popular in the Northwest, where a tour for Buddz’s eight-song EP, “Playback,” brings him to several stops in Oregon, including Wednesday in Bend (see “If you go”).

“I love to make music and the satisfaction is in having other people from all over the world enjoy it. I live out of a suitcase and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he’s quoted in his bio at his website, www.colliebuddz.com.

Buddz is a self-proclaimed studio rat, but relentless touring will keep even the most motivated artist busy enough to keep fans waiting relative eons for a follow-up LP.

“I’m working on the (second full-length) album right now,” he told The Bulletin in a telephone interview earlier this week. “Hopefully, it’ll be out next year around springtime.”

Meanwhile, as a stopgap, Buddz has released “Playback.” And guess what? It’s available as a free download at his site.

“Just ’cause it’s been too long, it’s just sorta something we threw out there, (something) we wanted to give away for fans that waited so long for another album. So yeah,” he said in his island-tinged accent, “that’s just in-between time, ya know?”

Not one to bury his title track, Buddz starts the EP off with “Playback,” a smooth tune that will worm into your ear and begin playing back at inopportune times, like when you’re trying to concentrate on a great Tweet or clever Facebook status. Consider yourself wormed. I mean, warned.

“Girl,” he sings, “your love is like pause, playback, rewind, pause.” Not sure what his girl would make of those lyrics, but for the rest of us, “Playback” has just the right amount of record scratching, a beat you can pulse and sway to and the singer’s winsome way of making “pause” sound like it has two syllables.

Then there’s the jaunty “Holiday,” in which Buddz explains, “Gotta take a little time out for myself/ Goin’ on a holiday, yes, I need to get away.” It’s a track he said has been a crowd pleaser on the current tour, even if it does kind of sound like a plea for help.

The Collie Buddz origin story goes something like this: Born Colin Harper in New Orleans, he moved to Bermuda with his family when he was 5. “As kids, we were like, 11, 12 years old, (and) we’d mess around with some beats and stuff,” he said.

At first, Buddz and his buds would freestyle over instrumental tracks from the “Strictly the Best” dancehall and reggae compilations, “then record ourselves on the tape deck singing other people’s songs and stuff,” he said. “Then it became more, like, we started writing our own lyrics. It was just a fun thing, but that’s how I really got started.”

And about the name Collie Buddz? He laughs when asked about it.

“My mom used to call me ‘Collie,’ and then my brother threw in the ‘Buddz’ when I was younger, and it just stuck,” he said.

Buddz has been called the Eminem of dancehall, and it’s a pretty apt comparison given his skin color and choice of genre. Like Eminem’s Detroit roots, his childhood in Bermuda, where the Jamaican influence is high, lends Buddz a credibility you can’t manufacture (see: Vanilla Ice).

Either way, he seems perfectly capable of bringing in fans like moths to the flame, even if Bob Marley might roll over in his grave (dreads permitting) if he knew this is what people are calling reggae in 2011. Buddz’s sound is slick and worldly, and the production value on “Playback” is set at 11.

Phoenix New Times, an alt-weekly in Arizona, sums up this sound quite well: “Buddz rarely sounds like a traditional reggae singer — songs like ‘World A Girls’ from his new record, ‘Playback,’ owe as much to Marvin Gaye soul and early G-Funk ambiance as … dancehall heaters.”

Jamaica’s become a regular stop for Buddz, who says that to Jamaicans, “it’s not about the color, it’s about the music, and Jamaicans know their music. Like, you go dancing down there, you don’t know what tunes you’re gonna hear.

“But it’s definitely harder” to earn acceptance there as a white reggae artist, said an undeterred Buddz. “You just have to work that much harder.”

The success of the last few years has allowed Buddz to collaborate or meet artists he used to parrot as a boy in Bermuda, and never dreamed he’d one day know.

“I’ve pretty much met all my idols (from) growing up, like Beenie Man, Bounty Killer, Luciano. I mean, the list goes on and on,” Buddz said.

“It’s pretty amazing. I never thought that I would be able to do that growing up listening to these guys. They’re mega-stars in my eyes. To be in the industry, and actually be able to meet them and have respect from them as well, it’s actually pretty cool.”

If you go

What: Collie Buddz with Gappy Ranks, New Kingston and Medium Troy

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday, doors open at 7 p.m.

Where: Domino Room, 51 N.W. Greenwood Ave., Bend

Cost: $17.50 plus fees in advance, $20 at the door. Advance ticket outlets listen at the website below.

Contact: www.random presents.com