Entertainment

Local acts flood US market

IT SEEMS THERE has never been a better time than now for dancehall artistes to ride American Billboard charts and rule their airwaves.

With Shaggy breaking major ground into the United States with his pop/dancehall singles, Sean Paul and Wayne Wonder following with undiluted dancehall, it seems a window has now opened up for pure dancehall to rush into the major US charts, and into the living rooms of the citizens.

Billboard busters

On the February 28 issue of Billboard Magazine, six dancehall artistes are on the Billboard Hot R&B Singles and Tracks chart. They are Sean Paul, TOK, Elephant Man, Beenie Man and Miss Thing, and Baby Cham.

Sean Paul leads the pack with Sasha on the single I'm Still In Love With You at number 16. Beenie Man and Miss Thing's Dude follows at number 32, while TOK'S Gal Yu A Lead sits at number 40. Elephant Man's Signal De Plane rests at 91, while Baby Cham's Vitamin S, which fell off the chart, has re-entered at number 100.

Outside of that, Elephant Man, Sean Paul, Miss Thing and Beenie Man have music videos on the major television networks which deliver pop culture into American homes.

Sean Paul, Wayne Wonder and Beenie Man have already appeared on different MTV programmes, and Elephant Man has appeared on MTV2 and BET programmes as well.

Dude is presently included in the voting pool of videos on BET's 106 and Park countdown show, along with Elephant Man's Jook Gal, and Sean Paul's I'm Still In Love With You.

These signs of rising popularity according to Jeremy Harding, add up to just one step involved in the complex process of making the huge break into the mainstream market.

"The aim of the game is to get as many spins on American radio as possible. In the end that is what matters," he stated in an earlier interview. "The radio and television stations have playlists, and when the record executives look at these, that is when they decide that an artiste has potential, and they will send him/her on."

Ricardo 'Snowcone' Fuller, the quiet producer behind some of Jamaica's leading crossover hits, feels that the time is ripe for artistes to hit big in the US.

"Coming from Sean Paul and Wayne Wonder and others, America is just waiting to hear more from Jamaica now. The artistes here just need to get mature and step up to the plate," he states. "Just write better tunes which have international appeal, and reason intelligently. This will go a far way now."

If 2004 comes anywhere close to 2003 in terms of more dancehall breakthroughs, dancehall artistes may finally see themselves getting a bit more international respect for one, and a bigger slice of the overseas marketplace.