MUSIC-JAMAICA: Dancehall Beats the Odds

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Howard Campbell

KINGSTON, Jul 24 2001 (IPS) - Dancehall music, often criticised by musicologists for its risque and violent themes, has confounded its detractors by becoming the subject of a wave of albums reissued by North American record companies.

Two companies, the Los Angeles-based Hip-O Records and New York City’s VP Records, have launched ambitious reissue series documenting the underground Jamaican music scene of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Their initiative breaks the cycle of reissue labels in the United States and Europe, which have traditionally re-released Jamaican music from the 1960s and 1970s.

The Hip-O project comprises several compilations showcasing the work of singers Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs and Barrington Levy as well as Yellowman and Eek-a-Mouse, two of the performers who telegraphed the rise of the deejay in the early 1980s.

For its Ultimate Collection programme, Hip-O – a subsidiary of the Universal Music Group – went into its vaults and came up with albums that zoom in on the work of performers who took the dancehall genre to a wider audience in the United States in the 1990s, namely Buju Banton, Capleton and Chaka Demus and Pliers.

VP Records’ Anthology series will be launched in September. It offers an even more indepth look at the domestic music scene in the years immediately after Bob Marley’s death – how it transformed from Rasta and roots and culture to slackness and gun lyrics.

Releases from the flamboyant deejay Ninjaman (Anything Test Dead”) and the affable Yellowman (“Look How Me Sexy”) mark the start of the VP campaign Sep 11.

The former is a two-CD set that captures one of dancehall’s most controversial figures at the peak of his powers in the late 1980s when his violent songs won him iconic status among hardcore fans and sent fear throughout Jamaica’s middle-class.

“We are trying to do what Blood and Fire (a British reissue company) has done for (engineer) King Tubby and (singer) Horace Andy,” said Murray Elias, director of Artist and Repertoire at VP. “Above all, we are trying to keep the fans happy by giving them everything they always wanted from ‘Yellow’ and ‘Ninja’.”

At various times throughout the 1980s, Yellowman and Ninjaman were the toast of Jamaican dancehall. For a brief period, Yellowman was signed to the major CBS Records and still enjoys a wide fan base worldwide.

This brash Albino was the head artiste in the Volcano Records camp of producer Henry “Junjo” Lawes who was the forerunner of the extravagance that typified the dancehall movement in the 1980s.

Lawes – who was murdered in London in June 1999 – started out in the music business as a hustler in the tough Kingston community of Olympic Gardens in the late 1970s. By the early 1980s, he was the leading producer in Jamaica, his flashy cars and colourful wardrobe setting the tone for a new breed of dancehall artiste in the late 1980s, led by archrivals Ninjaman and Shabba Ranks.

With the bawdy Yellowman’s rise coming so soon after Marley’s death, Jamaican musicologists blasted producers for throwing quality out the window for monetary gain. Ultimately, they feared that Jamaican popular music from that period would have little in terms of historic value.

By the early 1990s, things had changed for the better. As Yellowman and Ninjaman’s popularity waned, Shabba Ranks – who also came to the fore in the 1980s with a slew of suggestive songs – broke through in the US market and won back-to-back Grammy Awards. This opened doors for other deejays in Jamaica, including Buju Banton whose early work is captured on Hip-O’s Ultimate Collection.

“It’s been a strong seller, it made the Billboard Reggae charts and is doing quite well,” Dana Smart of Hip-O reported.

The critics gave Banton’s music little chance for posterity when he announced himself as the latest gruff-voiced, crotch-grabbing sensation ten years ago. He was seen as the successor to Shabba, but his break in the United States came through notoriety rather than record sales.

His homophobic song, “Boom Bye Bye” was blasted by US gay rights groups and forced Banton to cancel several concerts in 1995. The song, which Banton continues to perform on tour, summed up the controversial nature of dancehall reggae.

Despite its shortcomings in terms of musical quality, dancehall music from the 1980s and early 1990s has had a profound impact on urban US music. Ninjaman’s rantings influenced the gangsta rap genre that originated in Los Angeles at the start of the last decade while Super Cat, another deejay, has had top ten hits in the US with rappers Kriss Kross and rock group Sugar Ray.

And to think the critics said their music would not last.