What are people's favourite dancehall rhythms of the year or so...

alozade has a great voice - kinda adenoidal and weird, plus funny - but he takes slackness to altogether new levels so i find it difficult to play his stuff... i mean, fuck vibes, that's not a great track!

anyone heard the Saian Supa Crew track on the R2D2 riddim (it's called "S.A.I.A.N")? french dancehall toasting!

Tim, check Harry Toddler's version of 'Pass The Courvoisier' on the QUAKE RDDIM. It starts with what i'm sure is the Ghostbusters theme. Should be on slsk.

Some more riddims worth checking:
PUPPY WATER RIDDIM. Bollywood strings and a squelchy processed snare that sounds a little like the noise on 'Ice Rink'.
HUM HUM RIDDIM. This is crazy. No bass, just syncopated humming noises used similarly to the stuttering voice samples Mannie Fresh used to record. There's lots of weird glitchy snare hits and scratching!
SARS RIDDIM. Lush lovers rock, particularly Wayne Wonder's version 'You Make My Life Complete'. Typical stylized bhangra beat with a chunky timbale hit that clicks and clacks beneath a beautiful, twinkly synth line.
SOPRANOS RIDDIM. I mentioned this upthread, but it deserves some more attention. It's like a pseudo-bhangra riddim, it has a similar beat pattern to the indian riddims but doesn't use any of the drum sounds or claps, just a huge distorted kick drum that goes BOOOOOOM-boom! The melody is carried by a really nice soft flute. Don't know what it's got to do with the Sopranos, are the names supposed to be descriptive of the riddim?

(just to cover the only other thread about dancehall today...)
sean--you're OTM about the sopranos riddim. niceness.

The Forensic riddim is pretty simple but devastating - see Sean Paul's "Check It Deeply".

cashmere = kashmir?

"What's the name of the riddim Richard "Shams" Browne produces for the last track on Higher Level and on Sean Paul's "Samfy I"? It's an absolute cracker."

Just found out that this is the Glue Riddim - still a total fave.

the coolie dance riddim album is going to be irresistable if it comes out!

Coming out the 26th.

Is it just me or has Greensleeves gone into hyperdrive with their rhythm albums? This is, like, weeks after Good 2 Go.

Hey I don't suppose anyone has a tracklist for Chinese Assassin's 'Time to Kill'? It's a 74 minute dancehall mix that starts with Clappas. It's got the riddims from Elephant Man's 'No Hail Mi' and 'Give Her It Good', and it's got No Letting Go, Sean Paul & Busta, Jenny from the Block!, a great bootleg of Danny English & Eggnog's 'Party Time' (from the Diwali LP) on the Work It beat, the beat from Clipse's When the Last Time, Sean Paul's International Affair.

One of the best riddims has this riff on a plucked string instrument like in Roll Deep Regular and pingpong sounds like in Wiley's Shanghai, but it's too joyous to sound like grime. The first version is sung: "la la lala la/ give me a beat make the Marshal flow/ we sing the sounds to make the whole world know/ dancehall music coming through the door/ here we go-oh here we go/ I love the vibe that the music give/ dancehall music's so positive..."

Anyone know it?

hm talking of spurious garidge conaprisons mudslide riddim uses the same 'okay' bit as dizzee's vexed!

the ward 21 album has loads of low-frequency ,blowing-in-the-top-of-bottles noises (great description there, stelfox... no wonder you aint writing anywhere right now) that feature really heavily in a lot of grime, too

Aahhh I'm glad someone else has discovered mudslide!

OH MY GOD SALSA RIDDIM!!!!!

Like 20 Cent meets Rebirth meets Sign meets oh I dunno *everything*. I'm in the first flush of enthusiasm admittedly but right now this sounds like the best thing ever.

Search: Shaggy's "Your Eyes", TOK's "We Won't Stop", Ward 21's "Sick Head", Chico's "Exchange"... or just listen to Robbo Ranx's thursday show at 1xtra alternatively.

love the chico one. love chico. totally feeling chico's androgyny!

also check kiprich's killer flow on 'my best day'

also *cough* alozade and g-money 'dem no wise' *cough* shockwave riddim

"really useful post, this"

i am sad that there doesn't seem to be anything even nearly as good as "like glue" on the buy out riddim.

at the end of the day "buy out" isn't actually that great, it just works really really well w/ sean paul.

Odd how Sean Paul has done the best versions of a number of riddims - glue, rebirth, coolie dance, diwali arguably. Anyone who thinks he's a watered down product is totally kidding themselves.

And there's not enough talk about how amazing he is on "baby boy".

yeah, i'm completely addicted to samfy i too.

Right now if I had to do a favourite dancehall tracks of 2003 list it would look like this:

Beenie Man & Ms Thing - Dude
Sean Paul - Samfy I
Mad Cobra - Lazy Gyal
Chico - Exchange
Sizzla - These R Da Dayz
Sean Paul - Get Busy
Sean Paul - Close To Me
Vybz Kartel - Sweet to da Belly
Elephant Man - Blase
Sizzla - Love & Affection
Vybz Kartel - Gi Mi Some
Wayne Wonder - No Letting Go
Baby Cham - Wha Dat Fah
Kiprich & Preditor - Head Na Good
Sean Paul - Feel Alright
Elephant Man - All Out
Wayne Wonder - Bounce
Chico - Hail Di Gals Dem

Actually I'm gonna be DJing dancehall on Friday night, but I don't have all of these on mp3 so I'll only be able to play half these tracks.

wherefore 'fuck u sign'?

Oh shit I forgot that one!

Anyway, I gotta add Spragga Benz's "Move" and Vybz Kartel's "Bandwagonist".

Seriously though every time I listen to 1xtra I fall in love with a dozen new tracks. I can't believe the entire world isn't just going crazy over this inconceivable dancehall golden age we are living in.

Elephant Man - "Fan Dem Off" made me laff with the "Mas Que Nada" quote (is there nothing the man can't utilize?) and screechy mice noises. love the vocal melody of "Blase".

and Chico became my fave vocalist with "So Fly" on the Masterpiece riddim - good to see he's on the rise.

What's the new Elephant Man track where he nicks the vocal melody from "Eye of the Tiger"? Not brilliant but hilarious.

The remake of Night Nurse is great.

any recent stuff from tanya stephens and lady saw that i need? from tanya i've only got 'please me' on the tai chi riddim which i think is 2002. as for 2003 lady saw stuff, and i found 'sleep tonight', i dont know what riddim and i'm not even sure it's 03, but i like it cos it sounds a bit like kwaito which sounds a lot like early 90s house.

that's 'fan dem off' i think, tim. the one on gallop anyway

cesar riddim is my current skweeze

i'm totally stealing tim's list there and burning it to cd

i've been trying to make a dancehall mix for a friend but editing it down to single cd length (even with 80 mins of cdr space) is killing me. especially when i'm still downloading absolutely essential stuff (like the cesar riddim tracks, thanks for the heads up prima!!) as we speak. 2003 dancehall (and probably 2002 dancehall and 2001 dancehall etc etc, i just wasnt listening as hard then) is a source of great comfort and great anxiety. i've never been so certain that 1. there's a near-limitless source of loveable music and 2. i'm missing out on most of it.

Does anyone know what the name of the awesome riddim under Mr. Vegas's "Tamale" is? Luvvit.

Also I'd love some riddim IDs for Elephant Man's "Blase" (pop toon! Love how the intro quotes C&C Music Factory) and Kip Rich & Preditor's "Head Nah Good" (mega pop toon!).

Lenky's new one "Timetravel" is good but not as physical as masterpiece or (obviously and especially) diwali - although it's very enticing because a) it's claustrophobically dense, and b) it sounds like it was recorded underwater, which allows it to bring back the "dub" in a rather unusual manner.

Mitch your mix-cd looked great. I'm still looking for MP3s of stuff like Chico's "Exchange" - fuck limewire!

Isn't the Elephant man on the Blase riddim? It sounds hella like "Signal the Plane," "Pon the River," and pretty much everything he's done over the past year or so. The Kip Rich is on the Gallop riddim.

Cesar riddim IS GREAT!!

"Isn't the Elephant man on the Blase riddim? It sounds hella like "Signal the Plane," "Pon the River," and pretty much everything he's done over the past year or so."

You say that like it's a bad thing! Seriously though I take your point - Ele seems to have streamlined his big party-number style such that these sound great in a mix but would probably sound a bit odd stacked one after another an artist album (which may be why neither "Signal the Plane" nor "Blase" are on his next album). That said it's much less exhausting than his gangsta style circa 2000.

Yeah I found out it was the Gallop riddim about two seconds after posting that. I love it, but I wonder if it would be so great without "Mad - Sick - Head Na Good!/Madsickheadnahgood!" over the top.

how did that set go down with the crowd btw tim?

vybz's "band wagonist" quotes "can i get a..."!

"how did that set go down with the crowd btw tim?"

Well I think - I mixed in stuff like "Baby Boy" and "Stand Up" and "Snake" to help digestion, but anyway what I was playing was fairly easy stuff to dance to anyway - TOK's "Dis Means War" (Rebirth) and "Galang Gal" (diwali), Sizzla's "Love & Affection" (Wanted), Baby Cham's "Vitamin S" (Fiesta), Beenie Man's "My Dickie", Elephant Man's "All Out", Vybz Kartel's "Sweet to da Belly"... My boyfriend complained that it was occasionally difficult to find the beat but there were a lot of people dancing so I take that as a good sign.

I would have danced more but I had just been working, then wolfed down my dinner, then sprinted to catch the train. It was impossible not to dance to Sweet to da Belly though.

any thoughts on 'def jamaica'? the dmx/sean paul/mr. vegas song is pretty weak. the red and meth track is nice-ish, but it only really turns into dancehall when they're done with it. the ghostface/elephant man track is just decent elephant stuff with about 15 seconds of ghost.

oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck - i think have bought the absolute hands-down, single best dancehall tune in the world ever!!! i'd not seen it in london but unearthed it in jammyland in new york on a last-minute burst of record shopping. it's called soft inside and on the voom voom rhythm, voiced by the truly fucking awesome tanya stevens. as tim f said a while ago about the voom voom, it's pretty insane but this vocal is little short of heart-rupturingly fantastic. real screaming throaty diva stuff like you never heard before. incidentally, if anyone's even vaguely, interested i'm writing a whopping great big piece about tanya, wayne marshall, vybz kartel, ce'cile and assassin right now. it should be published in a couple of months or so and i interviewed ce'cile in long island about ten days ago. she's lovely and gave me one of the best interviews in my career talking about a lot of interesting social/political/gender/sexuality-related stuff as well as the music. also got a v advanced preview of her album and it's amazingly varied with a beautiful, sparse and surprisingly fragile soca tune that i could easily imagine being played by joe claussell, kervorkian and the like....

Whaddya think of the Cutty Ranks, Ce'cile, Vybz Kartel, and Mr. Vegas on the same riddim? All nice. But yeah, I'll give you that the Tanya Stephens is crazy good.

i got the ce'cile track, the vybz one, too, and was looking for the cutty ranks one when i stumbled on this... it's an absolute howler of a track and rocks my world like nothing i've heard before, so it's the winner for me!

Oh, and can I just say that the Ting a Ling riddim is amazing? I want the Jah Mason very very badly.

now i was only joking with the dubstep-shockwave thing but... cesar riddim is on "forward recordings" and the 7 looks like a fabric club flyer and the beat is kinda detroit-croydon and weirdly desultory inna bourgeois western way and it's really cleanly produced a-and how come effin ROUGH TRADE had it first!... b-b-ut i checked the runout groove and stuff, it's even got a JA phone number

o well. in other news !NGOZI riddim! watch out it's tuff!

i am well disappointed that the 'amelie riddim' is just a bite from the soundtrack and not rowan atkinson gabbacrunk or something

is it common-ish knowledge that 'ngozi' is zulu for 'DANGER'?

hey-prima fassy...I noticed that too. Check out www.geejam.com for more information. I don't know whether this is a good or bad thing.

argh argh "thinking INDEED LIVING outside the box", it's like some next kevin martin wordsound shit!

dancehall replies with THIS!!

arent "howlers" meant to be bad things?