rolling dancehall & reggae 2016

Still stuck on the lovely Day Off Riddim. Sell My Gun is really good too.

okay so so far this year Day Off, Cure Pain and All Inclusive Riddim are all among my absolute favourites. But they also seem to occupy much of the same sonic space. Any thoughts on how you would rate them individually?

yeah, I agree with that -- in fact I didn't really get into Day Off at first, because I'd just listened to Cure Pain and it felt a bit too similar. Right now I like the moodier vibe of All Inclusive the most, and I think it has the highest number of versions that I like, but I'm listening to Vershon on Day Off right now and it's pretty nice. Also I only really need Mavado on Cure Pain.

Champion Boy now has a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdyKjebTj7s

Keeping Mavado, Vybz, jahmiel and alkaline and maybe one or two more on Cure Pain btw. I really like it but there are just so many tracks I sometimes get a bit lost listening to it.

Also enjoying the kind of basic Love Games Riddim way more than I probably should.

Playlist updated.

ILM's Rolling Dancehall & Reggae Thread 2016 Spotify Playlist

oh yeah, Jahmiel is great on Cure Pain, forgot about that one. still fairly cool on Alkaline for the most part, though I liked his version on All Inclusive iirc

Feel like jahmiel is generally in the zone these days. Think 2016 could be a big year for him.

me too, though I am historically p bad at these kinds of predictions. also why I stopped anticipating crossover hits

I don't believe in crossover hits anymore, lol. I just want the quality to keep coming. There are about ten dancehall artists I rate higher than any American rapper not named Young Thug atm but I'm not expecting the world to notice any of them.

ha, yeah, I'm continually surprised at how a lot of the dancehall-interested writers/tweeters/whatever I check on seem to think that like, e.g., the Work video (or Good Times, Blacker the Berry, etc) is a clear sign that dancehall will be big again in Anglo-America. The Lagos-Joburg-Kingston-Port of Spain axis you mentioned on the afrobeats thread is exciting if pretty nascent imo, and I don't even know if we need to add London or Atlanta or NYC or, shudder, Toronto to it. that said, thinking about taking Work and replacing Drake with Dexta Daps or Burna Boy or etc...

...but that's because Drake sucks not because the others really need to be in an American pop/rnb context

Exactly! Dexta Daps on Work would have been awesome - too good, literally. He would probably have started singing about taking Riri's "maiden" though.

Popcaan - High All Day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iJDDs4CfEc

^nice

I like the 90s ragga made on a playstation vibe of this Mavado track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kmkESPxzbg

kinda forgot how excited I used to be for Rvssian's productions. this Charly Black never quite takes off like it could, especially with 4 minutes to work with, but trying to capitalize on his new south american fanbase seems like a good move:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XzJm_lQpu8

Indeed. I find it difficult to get past Busy Signal's version though - it's A LOT of fun.
― human and working on getting beer (longneck),

yeah that track is superb. did you check out the Chronixx tape?

also apparently I forgot how much I liked Christopher Martin on Cure Pain upthread too, so just ignore everything I said about that one

i need to get the chronixx mix. i'm on a facebook thread where everyone's freaking out about '16 releases in all genres and there's too damn much music everywhere! good problems.

nice Sly&Robbie/Taxi-era vibes on this Chino & Di Genius song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCysaCgp1ZY

http://www.fuse.tv/2016/03/tropical-house-dancehall-music-essay

Below is earlier January piece quoting Bianca Gracie who wrote the fuse piece re dancehall not getting proper credit -

http://www.spin.com/2016/01/rihanna-tropical-house-dancehall-kygo-charlie-puth-justin-bieber-selena-gomez/

Jamaican music entering the discussion of musical "appropriation" is fraught with so many ironies. I mean I can't tell a Jamaican person to not be annoyed by this, but from my POV jamaican music's conceptual gift to the world boils down to the power and creativity of unhesitatingly appropriating whatever crosses your radar, even when it's forced onto your radar through political and cultural imperialism.

Sure, there's some shitty behavior cited in that piece, and do push back against calling "Sorry" or "Work" tropical house for basic inaccuracy, but to my ears Sorry's primary influence is reggaeton, which (I'm sure everyone reading this knows) is an entire genre appropriated from a handful of dancehall riddims, so this supposed line of clear ancestry is actually pretty tangled...which is one of the things that makes following JA music fun -- shit like hearing "pass me the keys to my Beemer" show up in J Hus and afrobeats tracks. The thing to be annoyed about re: dancehall is widespread ignorance of riddim culture; to complain about dancehall being a meme is totally bizarre. During the Grammys when Pitbull performed El Taxi there were all these people straightfacedly tweeting about Pitbull "ripping off" Murder She Wrote, which is so lol since there's a reason that MSW is on something called the Bam Bam riddim not the Jessica Fletcher riddim. Or over in the ANTI thread where people were earnestly discussing how bad+weird it was to voice a Tame Impala riddim like they never heard Hell Is Round the Corner or etc...

There's something just so boring and essentialist about the way this stuff gets discussed, and, while lecturing Jamaicans about their own culture is a bad look, imo attacking appropriation goes against one of reggae's enduring strengths. This Sleng Teng theory is so interesting to me: https://axischemicals.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/david-bowie-digital-reggae-kingpin/. If true, then literally thousands of dancehall songs -- one of the unquestionably foundational riddims of the last 30 years of JA music -- are appropriated from a single Bowie song, an act of collective genius like jungle and the Amen break that should be hailed as an example. Basically, I wish dancehall was being brought up in these discussions as much for how it can serve as a force of creative appropriation counteracting people's apparently deathless commitment to a dubious/boring ideal of "originality" as it's being talked about as a currently overlooked culture that's being unfairly co-opted, as much truth as there may be to some of those claims.

Word.

lol thanks longneck

Ha ha, I'm writing this on my phone (from a sofa in Cape Town) so no longish essays from me atm but yeah, I pretty much agree w all of that, even to the extent that I find most thinkpieces abt evil white artists appropriating minority art extremely tiresome. Steal/jack/borrow whatever you can. Art might follow.

yeah I generally believe Internet social justice discourse has been a force for good, but "appropriation" (as distinct from actions that can be attacked as racism or exploitation) is so under-thought.

anyway, I should have just posted this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwOHjHUvrh8

yeah, great post there

The Wet Dreams Riddim is v close to the Strip Club Riddim (both are by Hot Boxxx), but I don't hear any new Come fi di knockaz/backaz on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOQQzJhexqs

It doesn't really matter though. A lot of fun on this.

Playlist updated through March.

ILM's Rolling Dancehall & Reggae Thread 2016 Spotify Playlist

Moscato Riddim is good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puBQuoHs2pA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puBQuoHs2pA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6lP8jxLSLE

good stuff longneck

this Nesbeth track is huge in JA and hasn't been posted here yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt9vsk82yqE

Moskato Riddim is out - minus the fun Devin Di Dakta version - on Spotify.
https://open.spotify.com/album/7dLiW948NNS17aCXkNpzsr

I'm also enjoying the Salt Shaker Riddim, which I just discovered. Not as good as Moskato but still nice:
https://open.spotify.com/album/5y907rS48Od9aHO6EVT4Md

looking forward to figuring out everything I've missed this year when school ends in a few weeks. also maybe by then winter will be fucking over

The Champ Riddim goes hard:
https://open.spotify.com/album/6xOISxVZiILbXSbOXRukyN

tippa lee is here at the store and he brought me a copy of his new solo album and it's really good! coming out on stones throw records. double disc vocal/dub set. if you like the old school bad boys. soul syndicate, tony tuff, cornell campbell, and sister nancy on it. that's my street team message. just sounds really cool in an old/new way. you know what i mean?

Swahili Riddim is crazy:

https://open.spotify.com/album/2ysD7fLQbSXWDJjjSgBPET

ayy, Rvssian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCsleHRtOJs

this internet herb liked this alkaline too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heqodywDfUU

Nice new Popcaan tune:

https://soundcloud.com/madaroad-com/popcaan-ft-dosa-medicine-ky-kwengko-official-audio-big-12-records

for the new yorkers among you, here's a pair of free upcoming shows with Alpha Blondy and Sweet Micky(!) and MHD

Alpha Blondy
August 16 – Tuesday – 7:00pm – Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan

Sweet Micky, MHD, Erick La Peau
August 21 – Sunday – 2:00pm – Central Park, Manhattan

idk why Demarco decided to make a video for the raw version of "Who the Fuck Cares" months after making a video for the clean version, but it's a good time and After Party still sounds great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3MxHxvcr6o

finally have some time to catch up

I absolutely love the Vershon version of Moskato, lyrics aside. the way the mixing adds drama to the riddim is so well done (also it undercuts the obvious 'hold yuh' debt):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4Z3CfSa_nY

Road Elf version is good too!

agreed! Tifa and Konshens good on that one too.

wasn't sure about Champ until I got to the Spice, who kills it though I have a few more to check. speaking of Spice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAZCKqLSv3Y

ok, I dug Tifa and Kartel on Champ too. Though now I'm just replaying Sight & Wine

Actually The Champ for me goes something like

Kartel / Spice
Tifa

Aidonia/Sean Paul/ Voicemail

All of those are good, but only the upper three are great.

yeah I agree with that completely. had skipped the Sean Paul the first time through, but it's not bad! he's actually having a good year? realized this morning that both his cuts on All Inclusive are nice.

btw, if you haven't seen the video for Konshens 'Bruk Off' please watch, it is kind of amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6lDG6PNmCs

lol that's awesome! As is Spice in Pontypandy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=139p7gMYef8

rolling dancehall & reggae 2017

Playlist is finalized for the year.

ILM's Rolling Dancehall & Reggae Thread 2016 Spotify Playlist