Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.
The big news first: the main focus of my energy for this week’s column was scheming (?like finagling except more conniving) to land an exclusive chance to premiere the new video for Erup’s “Click Mi Finger” here on Ghetto Palms. If by chance you came late, “Click” is a track that was recorded by an unknown deejay at a studio housed in the back of a container truck parked in a lot somewhere in New Kingston back in 2007. By New Year’s of that year it had torn down enough fences around Jamaica that people were nominating the Gearbox as “Riddim of the Year.” I can count myself among a small handful of deejays who broke the track in New York when I debuted it here last March, and a summer of heavy rotation on Hot 97 later, it entered the Billboard Hot 100 in November 2008. Now a full two years on, it is finally ready to premiere in a form that MTV and BET can understand and just in time for three important things: 1) another summer 2) an Erup album project with Truckback Records guaranteed to spawn: 3) follow up 45s like “Mek Noise” which can carry us through the hot weather again.
Just like Erup himself this video thing has blown up to the point where it has outgrown this column altogether and now you have to check it here and read his Gen F profile in the new-brandest issue of FADER.
But that’s not all I got going on. By no means. For one thing there is this Skull riddim track which has been floating around for a month or two but just invaded my dub box via the good people at Riddimstream marketing a few days ago.
Skull riddim blend:
Dre Skull, “Skull Version”
Shifta, “Turn Ova”
Crossovah, “Deeper”
Lyrical, “Goodas”
Natalie Storm, “Storm Dub”
Vybz Kartel, “Kill Dem All & Dub”
Download:
Skull riddim blend
It’s produced by Dre Skull, a Brooklyn cat who is less of a straight up dancehall producer than the type to have a grime mc or a madman like 77Klash voice his rhythms, or to get Buraka Som Sistema to remix them. Nevertheless this works beautifully as a bashment track built from kettle drums (or are they tympanis? I was never in orchestra) and cautiously optimistic synths. The riddim run is a mixed bag of promising underdogs like Shifta and dubs from Jamaican stars Vybz Kartel and Ghetto Palms fav Natalie Storm. The big exception of course is “Gone Too Far,” an original tune which Sizzla put down for the riddim. I neglected to include it here, which reminds me of the other thing I need to talk to you about.
That exclusive Tim Turbo blend that ran last week in honor of Ghetto Palms 2nd first birthday? Turns out there was a catch. Once I read the fine print realized I had to barter for it with a blend of my own, which will run in place of the Tim Turbo Thursday podcast on the Seen reggae blog tomorrow. I did include the Sizzla track there, which seems like a cynical ploy to send some traffic that way and engage in a little shameless self-promotion but the truth is I’m just senile.
