Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.
Pussy Good riddim! New tunes on the Mini Skirt! Just playing. This week it is all about Unfinished Business, in spirit as well as fact. When I debuted the new Cham tune “Hope” a few weeks ago, I mentioned that there's been a mob of new stuff licking back Dave Kelly’s classic Showtime riddim—the most prominent being a beat called Unfinished Business. Also, since way back in GP#4 when I randomly threw the bhangra hybrid “Panj Bindiyaan” into a Collie Buddz/De Tropix set where it really had no business being, I been thinking about doing a blend of other UK dancehallish bhangra in that vein. So, this week’s blend is about killing two old birds with one stone. So to speak.
Showtime riddim:
Cham, “Hope”
Unfinished Business riddim:
Bugle, “What Dem Doing”
Serani, “Play it Straight” aka “No Games”
Beenie Man, “Him a Go Dead”
Mavado, “I’m So Special”
Show Off riddim:
Mavado, “Last Night”
Desihall:
Amar Arshi, “Teri Sadi”
Apache Indian, “Teera Toor"
Bikram Singh, “American Jugni”
Tigerstyle vs. Alexis, Baby Ranks & Fido, “El Tiburon” (refix)
Download: Ghetto Palms Desihall Blend
I think the main reason I believed in my head that both projects could work in one blend is that “Panj Bindiyaan” happens to be from a record called Unfinished Business so it comes up in Serato every time I pull up the riddim run to play it in a club. In the rap era, producers used to find sounds to sample on the b-sides to classic disco breaks. Now DJs mix mp3s because their titles are anagrams for the songs they’re searching for. Metadata: It’s the new digital serendipity, baby. Like just a month or two ago, Jace Clayton aka DJ Rupture and I had a convo about how the whole tropical moment (his NY Tropical party, Tormenta Tropical in SF, Secousse in London, the rise of El Guincho, De Tropix etc) has been precipitated by the fact that MySpace offers "tropical" as a genre in its listings—who described their music as tropical before that?
Anyway back to the Showtime—it seems like every other beat that comes uses some element of it, mostly the static-y Hey! Chant that gives it the hook. One of the first was the Show Off, then the same producer (TJ) came with a round 2 called the Unfinished Business which officially does for Showtime what Tear Up Jeans did for Corduroy and Money Tree did for Buyout. When it dropped I wouldn’t necessarily have picked it to be the hottest riddim of the year, but both the Serani and Mavado tunes have gone from being dancehall anthems to Hot97 crossovers. I’m comfortable admitting I didn’t call this one only because the other big tunes that have been elevated into billboard territory—Demarco’s “Fallen Soldier” and Erup’s “Click Mi Finger”—debuted in this space (in fact both artists were debuted here…go me!)
TJ actually started as the promoter of Bembe Thursdays, which has been the hottest bashment night in Kingston for the last few years, the highlight in an otherwise kind of muted dancehall scene. Even though we have stepped into the post-election future stateside there are still plenty things to be mad at the world about in JA, as “Hope” indicates. Yesterday I had a Facebook instant message exchange with Tifa from TNT that went like this:
T: whats going on?
ES: oh you know: economy crashing, stuff like that
T: Tell me about it, I am crashing with it
ES: Really? I was thinking about hiding out in JA, at least the food there really does grow on trees.
T: LOL!!!! Yeah but you have to deal with crime and kidnapping and stuff.
ES: True. but the way things are going I’ll have to deal with it here too pretty soon.
So speaking of Unfinished Business (segues!) I guess the Bush economy doesn’t know it’s dead because every day it continues to bite people in the ass from beyond the grave. Seems like the only thing to do is tuff it out until the check from new America arrives in the mail. Which reminds me: my girl Jean pointed out in response to my 2000tone blend that I’m not the only one who was ready to paint the White House 2Tone. Also: from now until Jan. 20th I would appreciate it if you could refer to me as President-Select. I don’t know what I’ll be called after Jan. 20th because that is the first day of the rest of time.