rolling dancehall & reggae 2018

Nice.

Kranium on a classic Kelly-esque riddim:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IJsBHv8vVo

He had me at "Early in the morning"

rob, the Dexta EP is just three tracks, they’re all nice, but “Pleasure” is the best.

That Spice song, Black Hypocrisy, is a tune of the year, right?

It's really great and the fake skin-bleaching "stunt" (a critique/interpretation that strikes me, a white non-Jamaican, as a deliberate misreading) seems to have paid off in terms of attention--it's at 2.7M views already.

I love that she also dropped the "Under Fire" video shortly afterward, in case you were worried she'd gone too woke

The whole mixtape goes hard.

I mean... "my pussy pretty like Shenseea face" - lol!

btw, I think Rygin King's Tuff, posted above, might be in my top 5 this year.

If you mean top 5 dancehall, I think it's my number 1. I don't think I've even mildly enjoyed any of Rygin's other songs, but Tuff is sublime! Tbh I have a very poor sense this year of what's genuinely popular in JA. I know Tuff was big, but is there a contender for biggest tune this year? As well as Forever did, I don't think any one track has emerged as its hit.

I made a post a week or so ago with a bunch of Aidonia and Govana tunes but it got eaten--anyway, those two have had great years. Put "VVS" alongside "Tuff" as examples of dancehall responding to trap in an exciting way.

I didn't have time to listen to much, but the first few tracks on that Spice tape were a blast.

damn I'd forgotten how gorgeous the netflixxx riddim is

feeling the Rygin King tune. Excellent, original use of autotune on that one and the production is sweet

I meant top 5 overall, actually. It's just so... life affirming.

Legacy is kind of nice as well but obviously not half as good.

I should give them another listen but yeah none had that instant sugar rush like Tuff.
looking forward to hearing what else is in your top five later in the year, longneck

Fake Love is in there, at the very least!

don't lock that list down just yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8HoEvDh70Y

Koffee, "Toast"

This new Alkaline is good too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT0gwGWHzBk

if I was a dj I'd be real excited about Ding Dong's "Vibes"

Spice - Romantic Mood is so so good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eqCwj7XWxk

yeah that's a great homage. The "No No No" interpolation is the only thing that doesn't quite work imo, but the rest is smart and subtle and bangs even if you don't get the references.

It's a little weird how refreshing and creative a 90s ragga riddim sounds right now, though I can't figure out if that one is new or not. Echoing something I said on the Rosalía thread but I feel like you could really make waves in JA production these days simply by not saturating the track with sound, leave some space/air and emphasize the syncopation again (n.b., I don't know music theory at all so I may be talking nonsense here).

No, I think that's correct. The main problem in dancehall production atm is that a lot of it sounds stuffed and compressed. The Popcaan album sounded so refreshing mainly because it had a lot of air in the production, but at the same timeit could have used some new ideas about how you can use those spaces. The new Kartel is a case in point here too. It sounds as if it's on the verge of some sort of discovery but it doesn't quite get there. Imo it doesn't work but you get the distinct feeling that it might have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If8L0Zaskq0

Huh, that is a super interesting track! Is that really Kartel?? I'm getting some kind of uncanny valley effect from his britishy ohs (plus the IG ref). Secondly, re: the production, I agree that that sounds very close to novel. I like the crispness of the drums especially.

The Popcaan album, which I really like, is interesting in that I think it basically represents a capitulation to the idea that afrobeats took on the early '10s dancehall sound and improved it (the flipside to that being trop house, which took the same sound palette and made it bland). While there are of course good songs still coming out of JA, hopefully soon we'll get something radical.

Yeah, Kartel seems to be on some weird britishy vibey experimental ish these days - or rather I guess he must have been at some point between the advent of instagram and his incarceration, lol. On the Illi Sanchea track that dropped a while ago he's even more freewheeling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uzFOeawzKg&frags=pl%2Cwn

I'm not into this one at all for some reason, although I guess it is... interesting. There was a fun moment when she was a guest on the Robbo Ranx show this week and she asked him straight out if he liked it and he tried really hard to avoid answering her question (he hasn't played it until this week and Robbo plays A LOT of Kartel).

Yeah that one's kind of a mess, though I'm not sure whose fault it is.

I might have to listen to that Robbo show though, haven't checked in with him in a long while. I'd basically come round to the "Kartel's vault was massive before prison" theory, but now I'm less sure.

Yeah, Kartel mentioning part of her name in the song and referencing the Beatles while doing the britishy accent thing makes the he-had-this-in-an-old-folder-all-along theory seem somewhat implausible.

So... uh... Stylo G got Nicki AND Kartel on the remix of this banger:

https://youtu.be/459bLvt7f9c

that is good. lol at mixing the Kartel ad lib in right after the bleach line

You know Nicki could do a lot worse than going full snoop lion next album. I think the only thing off Queen I liked was the one that sampled Dave Kelly

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