Entertainment

Dancehall pays respect to the past

file photos - Beenie Man and Junior Gong

ONE OF THE more striking ways in which deejaying and singing differ is that deejays are simply not expected to do over another deejay's song.

It may stem from the stigma about 'pirates' who steal other's lyrics; it may be that the rhythms have changed so much over time that updating a dancehall tune would not make any sense. (Can you imagine Shabba's Needle Eye on the 'Coolie Dance' rhythm, or Papa Levi's Mi God, Mi King on the 'Showtime'? Don't think so?

Honoured their predecessors

So, situations that are commonplace among Jamaican singers, like Richie Stephens covering Dennis Brown's Should I, Barrington Levy doing over Bob Andy's Too Experienced and Luciano remaking Peter Tosh's Legalise It simply are not a part of the

deejay world.

However, recently there have been a couple singles in which deejays have honoured their predecessors that, while far from being remakes, have certainly acknowledged the contribution of those who have gone before. This has happened with updated rhythms and, in two cases, include the actual voices of the original artistes ­ and they are not necessarily deejays.

Junior Gong's current Jamrock opens with a sample of Ini Kamoze's Worl' A Reggae Music, which was long before the days of Hotstepper. How many people in the young generation of listeners will know that it is Ini Kamoze singing "out in the streets they call it murder--" is debatable, but it is good that the clip has been included.

Original voice

Another example of the original voice being used is in Beenie Man and Gorilla Blacks Compton, with Lady Ann in the background chanting the rocking 'what a bam bam, bam bam, diddly diddly bam bam'. It is a very nice touch.

Also on the same rhythm is Anthony B's Lighter, with Wyclef Jean and Bonecrusher. The big American rapper, Bonecrusher, pays homage to Tenor Saw, to the shot of an ambulance in the background, when he chants 'ring the alarm, another thug is dying', a direct take-off of Saw's sound-killing 'ring the alarm, another sound is dying'.

There are those lucky few who have spanned sufficient time to do an update of themselves (and we are not talking about George Nooks here). In Chase Money there is a distinctive squeaking sound, but it is not Macka Diamond lifting a squeak off Major Mackerel, but her going back to her roots as Lady Mackerel, as she first came around in the 1980s.

And Assassin pays homage to Buju Banton, the youngster going back to the early days of the Gargamel and riding the rhythm with just a touch of Stamina Daddy.

Don't look for outright remakes, but there will be snippets of older deejay material in the future, as the genre establishes more of a legacy to reflect on ­ and treasure.