rolling dancehall & reggae 2018

Yeah, a Nicki who actually went with her instincts instead of with what her marketing people thought was the right move for her might have been awesome.

OK thinking about dog latin's poll suggestion, I made a little list of tracks. I have a bunch of disclaimers but first here's the list. They're not ranked but I divided them into an upper and lower tier:

First Tier
Rygin King “Tuff”
Popcaan “Bulletproof”
Koffee “Toast”
Alkaline “Yaadie Fiesta”
Busy Signal “One Way”
Shenseea x Konshens x Rvssian “Hard Drive”
Konshens “Turn Around”
Kranium “No Odda”
Popcaan “Lef My Gun”
Masicka “They Don’t Know”

Second Tier
Govana x Jada Kingdom “Better Than That”
Jada Kingdom “Banana”
Govana “One N Move”
Popcaan “Family”
Mavado “Dress to Impress”
Shenseea “Pon Mi”
Spice “Black Hypocrisy”
Vybz Kartel “Under Water”
Aidonia “VVS”
Alicai Harley “Naah Done”

The big disclaimer is I haven't thought about this too much, nor have I made an effort to find anything I missed. This was also a year where I heard a lot of good songs from favorite artists but rarely any clear classics, so in a bunch of cases I'd be open to alternates: Alkaline (I just love that riddim), Spice (as a white person I feel weird big-upping BH), Aidonia, Shenseea (tbh I'm not sure she put out a truly great song this year), and I still don't know which track on Forever is my favorite.

BH is a monumental song but I must admit that other songs, like Romantic Mood and Genie, are a lot more fun to listen to.

Is any dancehall crossing over to other year end music lists? At quick glance not seeing any in Pitchfork top 100 tracks list— also no soca or afrobeats

The Popcaan album is the only dancehall I've seen on a list. Frankly, I wouldn't expect anything else to appear--it's been a somewhat quiet year.

Why did you guys hide this Spice track from us all year? (and why is it not on the album?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOtj1aiHRw8

Spice • Tik Tak

annual thanks to rob, longneck and co itt for keeping up with what’s going on. annual commitment to look into this thread more often! looking fwd to making my way through the list rob.

thanks Fizzles! I just spent ten days in Trinidad & Tobago and now really want to tweak that list. If nothing else, it's now obvious that "Silence" is the people's choice off Forever and hearing it booming out of various speakers' the whole trip made it clear why.

this new Rygin King "Powerful" is quite good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OrpJCditas

I might have dismissed "Tik Tak" as a little too Spice-by-numbers when it came out, but it sounds nice this morning.

I'm not sure if it was being in the Caribbean or year-end second-guessing, but lots of things are grabbing me harder this week. There's a bunch of Alkaline, Masicka, and Rygin King that I'd put on that list now, e.g.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWgD_IG46gE

Ding Dong should probably be on there somewhere too.

I think this Aidonia was in a post that got eaten:

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

rolling dancehall & reggae 2019