Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.
So, there’s this new dude running dancehall called Busy Signal. Maybe you hearda him, he is on the cover of FADER and his record came out yesterday on VP and also I have mentioned him in this space x a billi. He’s been so consistently killing it this year that I’ve been contemplating an entire column dedicated to him pretty much since I started Ghetto Palms but now that MIA is on the remix and his moment has so clearly arrived, I almost didn’t do it. Considering that he is the one new artist in dancehall that people are actually excited to hear an album from—as in a long-player—as opposed to just collecting the various juggling riddims, it seemed kinda wrong to just put a whole mess of his music on the net for free. With that in mind what follows is a quick and dirty Busy Signal teaser mix designed to put you in a copping frame of mind.
Busy Signal blend:
“Step Out”
“Whine Pon di Edge”
“Mek She Stamma”
“Wine Up, Wine Up”
“Tic Toc”
The tracks I selected are in the tempo of “Dutty Wine” and “Hot Fuk,” the fast-whine micro-genre that Busy, surprisingly, has pretty much owned this year. Surprisingly because he has carved out a niche for himself based on grimy, concept-driven songs and exclusive productions but he is still right there with Vybz and Mavado as one of the roughest lyricists in the general juggling and somehow better at hooky bashment tunes like these even though he’s not a hook guy, really. Anyway, I could go on about Busy as a writer but he says it more articulately himself in his interview so just jump into the music as you read it. Some of it is old (“Step Out”), some brand, brand new (“Wine Up”), some is on the album, some ain’t. You may also note that it is not downloadable, which is just my subtle way of reiterating: go buy the record!. Badmen got to eat, too and now Busy Signal knows what I look like so if you are freeloading his tunes, you didn’t get them from me…
