Entertainment

Tuck and tek

( left - right )Admiral Bailey and Leftside and Esco - file photos

IT HAS BEEN a while since a dancehall song has had replies flying left, right and centre like Left Side and Esco's Tuck Een Yu Belly.

And it has not been so long since there was a furore about Vybz Kartel's Tek.

Since we are not in the habit of connecting the dancehall dots, many of us will have forgotten - or not known in the first place - that the 'tucking' and 'tekking' have been raised by the deejays before.

In Two Year-Old from the late 1980s, Admiral Bailey goes to the abdomen of the ladies with "har belly skin no fi marky marky". Then, a few years later, Shabba Ranks also promoted the necessity of a flat stomach for a 'hot girl' in Ting-A-Ling with "belly haffi flat like a willy penny".

It was also Shabba who helped set the precedent for Tek when he asked the ladies "everyting a raise,whe yu a do? Yu naa raise de price a de p...m p...m too?" Then he chided those who were minding but not properly 'winding' with "dem a let off de money an dem cyaan do de wuk".

So let us not forget that these 'tekking' and 'tucking' topics have been raised before, maybe not quite in the same way but they have long been a part of dancehall culture.