Echante Wa Gwan?

Before I explore and hopefully inform you a little bit about dancehall and my experiences and thoughts on it you should first of all know that dancehall and I are bit like your favourite booty call. I go long bouts without a listen and then i binge, i mean bulimia binge haplessly the inevitable throwing up starts. Not out of disgust though, never, dancehall is dear to me. I started really getting into dancehall round 2001/2002. The genre wasnt new to me as everybody knows those old ragga songs (some got their back pockets wined of to those sweet melodies). However the new dancehall was new to me. Over the years I learned to enjoy its shifts, hypes, clashes and waves. What I’m noticing right now is that it’s getting back to its essence!

The past few years the dancehall sounds has been determined by Stephen “Di Genius” McGregor and the alliance camp. It brought about a very dark and sinister sound ala Mavado – Im on the rock you feel it? Not really to the preference of my taste buds but definitely something for the goonish bredda dem. Round the same time the whole dancing up rise started and dance themed song were popping out left right and centre, you all remember ”tek weh yuself” and ”badman forward badman pull up” right? New York saw a whole movement with kids all round battling and putting their skills up on Youtube”. Dancehall was very much confused at the time but yes the Jam man dem saw the light and in my eyes the one and only Busy Signal (airhorn) the “Sound di big ting dem” man is holding the torch.

When Mavado and Vybz were beefing, Busy was recording bangers. When Bounty and Beenie were beefing, Busy was recording bangers. Dancehall artists are probably the most prolific recorders in the whole word of music, with new riddims coming out almost every week. But no-one is as prolific as Busy, the man is a beast. 2010 is only 28 days old and hes already got 6 new songs ripping up the airwaves. As you might be able to tell I’m a huge Busy Signal fan, i had my Mavado and Vybz times but Busy represents something different. For example he’s always experimenting with other genres albeit electro, baile funk or UK Funky, and thats very much what I like.

Dancehall and Hip Hop are inevitably linked through the heritage of most NYC based rappers and the likeness of the genres. The 90’s and early to mid 2000’s saw many a hip hop and dancehall collabo, lil kim – Push Ya Lighters up , Mavado and 50 cent, Sean Paul and various hip hop acts. But as every genre of music is intertwining and getting back to its essence as it seems, dancehall is following lead. Through the shift of music in the U.K which I have posted about before and the forays of several DJ’s in to the dancehall scene, dancehall artists are starting to dabble their toes in foreign waters. I was once listening to… i think it was “Vybz Kartel – Money Fi Spend” and a friend of mine ignorant of the existence of dancehall noted quite bluntly “WTF is this it sounds like techno on crack with autotuned vocals” this little anecdote very clearly exemplifies my point.

I’ve already noted on a few occasions that Dancehall is going back to its essence. How do I know this? Listen closely to the riddims that have been released in the last few months, all are very dance friendly and they’ve got that old familiar thump we used to hear back in the earlier days. But instead of boring you more with my bramble imma lend some pukka to your ears. Take a whole load of busy signal a dash of various other artist doing it atm and a pinch of soca and then you got it my favourite tunes right now! Hand picked for you to skank out, dagga and fuck it even grind pon ya seat. SELL OFF AND SEN AAN!

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