Smutlee mix

I got Smutlee to do a short mix of dancehall, funky and garage stuff for the Vice music blog last week. It's real nice. Tracklist in comments.

Download: Smutlee mix

Ugandan dancehall and the Ghetto Republic of Uganja

This week's Scene and Heard for the Guardian music blog is on the Ugandan dancehall scene and the breakaway republic that dancehall collective Fire Base Crew has formed in a slum in the country's capital, Kampala. Below are some words regarding this topic by VBS.TV's Santiago Stelley, who recently filmed a documentary about Fire Base.

When we went to Uganda we weren’t really planning on looking into the music scene at all, but from the minute we landed in Kampala we started hearing dancehall everywhere we went. And we love dancehall – a little over a year ago we shot a ton of dancehall artists for the Vice Kills Jamaica series and we had also followed up in New York with Beenie Man and other artists who weren’t on the island during our visit. Anyway, I knew that dancehall was supposed to be pretty popular in sub-Saharan Africa, but I certainly didn’t expect anything on the scale we encountered.

Our first days in Kamapala we kept seeing and hearing these trucks blasting dancehall as they drove around the neighbourhoods selling CDs, so at some point we started asking our Ugandan fixer about the local artists. He was the first person to tell us about the Fire Base Crew, but he also told us about the complex politics of the local dancehall scene.

In Uganda, the dancehall world plays an interesting role in day-to-day politics and governance. At first, the idea of a dancehall crew having its own president, vice president, ministers etc seemed kind of silly to us, but in reality Fire Base do play an active role in local politics.

"Who's this lairy fockin' twat bellin' me from a private number like?"

I did a thing on Busy Signal for this week's NME so don't be surprised if you soon start hearing flocks of Pigeon Detectives fans talking in a cod-Jamaican accent about giving private callers the brush-off.

They took out my line about Wiley working with "warbling bakery shop assistant" Kate Nash and the word count is so small there wasn't room for many quotes (I might put up the transcribed interview – it's pretty funny) but it's worth picking up alone for the shot of Busy looking like his forehead is covered in dried-up hairspray (you'll know what I mean when you see it).

The biggest tune in Jamaica right now

Sound di big ting, etc.

The Lightning Bolt

Following her glorious Olympic swimming triumph, mega hero Rebecca 'The Dolphin' Adlington has had a Yates’s pub in Mansfield named after her.

It was always going to be hard for the Jamaicans to match this tasteful and timeless memento when they were honouring chicken nugget-scoffing superhuman Usain Bolt, but I think they've managed it – just. He's been given his own dancehall dance called the Lightning Bolt.

After his 100m and 200m finals, Bolt did the Nuh Linga and the Gully Creepa dances (which are also songs by Elephant Man).

As a tribute, Elephant Man does the Lightning Bolt above. Enjoy.

Dancehall masochist

I thought the video I posted of the Japanese dancehall fan girl (which has now been removed, unfortunately) was a bit worrying in places, but this is next level. These guys are putting some WCW-style sex pest moves on her. I was expecting the Jamaican Undertaker to come out at any minute and clothesline her before finishing her with a Tombstone Piledriver.

"I do like these trotters, I must say"

Esco and Fresh Money - "Dun Dem Credit"

This is Esco of Leftside & Esco fame (not the guy in Slew Dem Crew who annoyingly refuses to release anything) trying to put on an English accent in a recent dancehall song. Apparently they were watching an English film and decided to start Googling English things to talk about. By the sound of it, I would guess Danny Dyer was probably playing some type of part in the film. Innit. Btw, do you think this is kind of like what Jamaicans hear when someone like Jamakabi does his "yardie flow"?

Mavado interview

Photo by Jamie-James Medina

Here is a short interview I did with Mavado after his Stratford Rex show at the end of last year.

Prancehall: I heard you first started singing in public in church when you were a kid. Did you have a good voice back then?
Mavado: Definitely. I have a good voice now, so I must have a good voice back then.

Were you using your "Gangster for life" catchphrase at church in those days?
No.

What's the situation with you and Vybz Kartel?
Well the situation with me and Vybz Kartel, that kind of gone for along the while so I don't really talk about that any more.

Okay. Are you selective about the producers you will work with? You seem to have done a lot of work with Stephen McGregor.
Daseca – my management team, my producing team - they are the ones who do most of my riddims, you know what I mean? And then you've got Stephen [McGregor] so it's like a family so every time they've got a big riddim they know I'm the one to take it off to another level. Every time they've got a big rhythm they call Mavado.

You could have covered your album with collaborations from much bigger dancehall artists and I'm pretty sure it would have sold a lot more. Why did you decide against that?
Well, I could've had more guests on it but this is my first album and I think the people wanna hear more about Mavado, from Mavado, you understand? So that's why I even done this album with so many of my songs.

Is there anyone you would like to work with?
Well, a lot of producers like Sly and Robbie and all those people, and right now I'm really getting together to work with Sly & Robbie. You know, I'm already in the international market by doing some songs with international artists like Foxy Brown and Akon and Busta Rhymes for his album, and Wyclef, Uncle Murda and so many more, you know what I mean?

After blowing up rhythms like Red Bull & Guinness, you must get a lot of people these days asking you to vocal their rhythms...
People always try to approach me with money to do songs for them, but if I nuh like the riddim, if it nuh sound like my kind of riddim, if it nuh sound like my kind of thing and all of that, then me nuh go voice no matter how much you have, 'cos I'm not a person that cheat the music.

That's very noble. Tell me about your upbringing.
Well, you dun know, we from the gully – Kingston, Jamaica, Cassava Piece, Kingston 8, Kingston great, you know what I mean? Growing up now from the gully and ting, life hard, you know? But we still have to pull through and we have to still make it through life and came out to be a better man today. Cassava piece is a ghetto. It's just like you hear about Jungle and all of these places, and Tivoli Gardens and all of that. It's just one whole ghetto, that's why we say "Gully side." You know, 'cos it's just one gully side.

---

MP3: Lewi White feat. Busy Signal & Mavado - Vice Dub

Back to 2000

I was listening to some random pirate station last night and the guy played Wookie's "Gallium" followed by Coki & Benga's "Night" really pitched down and then Apple's "Mr Bean". Pretty great 10 minutes of radio right there. The DJ then ruined it by playing loads of boring male vocal funky house layered with really bad drops and sound effects. I then switched across to Rinse FM and Hatcha was playing "Night" and about 10 minutes later it was on Mary Anne Hobbs's show in a Skream set she was repeating. I've heard that it has been signed to a major and they are getting a vocal - probably by Baby Katie, the girl on NG's "Tell Me". I wonder how the dubstep fans will react to that? Apparently "Gallium" might be coming out on a major too, with a female vocal on top. There's a pretty amazing Badness vocal that I heard today but Scratcha is the only person who has it.

I also heard this great new dancehall rhythm last night. "Planet Rock"-style electro beat with an auto tuned Vybz Kartel vocal. Anyone know the name? I know everyone hates those faster dancehall rhythms like Shooter but I can't get enough of them.



What happened to ghostriding the whip? I guess people's cars all got away on them.

Grime's not dead, it's just resting its eyes

This video falls somewhere between this and this with some definite echoes of this.



This was done at the room right at the top of the Stratford Rex a few weeks back. If you pause it in the right place you might be able to catch the shadow of the end of one of my fingers on the wall to the right of the screen. You might also have seen the side of my head for 1/10th of a second on Channel 4 on Friday night on the Nike Supersonic programme. So famous right now.


Here is my new regular feature where I list events that grime MCs have been booked to play but were too busy to show up.

Last week the MCs who were otherwise engaged when they were supposed to be performing were:

*Trim in Brighton
*Boy Better Know in Bristol

Have you booked a grime MC who hasn't bothered to show up? Let me know below in the comments or email me. The best story wins a plastic clothes hanger with the words: "Grime's not dead, it's just resting its eyes" scrawled across it in Tippex.

Stratford Rex: The dick inspector

I didn't get any pictures or videos from the Mavado show last night. Pretty annoying. The whole thing was filmed anyway so maybe I'll get the DVD. When I got to The Rex around 10, the police had already shut off two lanes of traffic outside the club and lined up at least eight police cars and vans along the road. They also had police dogs and guys with M16s. Pretty insane for an event where there wasn't a hint of trouble all night. Total over reaction in my opinion. On the way in they were taking no chances: I got the metal detector and full search and then I was ordered to go and see a woman in the corner. I had no idea what was going on so I walked up and stood next her and without saying a word she put her hand between my legs and cupped my piece before nodding to the other bouncers that I was allowed in. I think that was her job all night: dick inspector. She checks to see if you're packing a big enough piece and if not she sends you out to be gunned down by the police. There were no shootings last night, thankfully.

Inside I saw Chipmunk, Badness and Logan Sama in a full suit with a red tie and overcoat. I told him he needed to wear a white suit next time to fit in. He didn't seem so keen. I saw some pretty amazing fashion in there. There was a guy who looked like a fat Benga who had Air Force Ones covered in gold sequins and he was the most under dressed person there. He performed later on but I had no idea who he was. He did some bars over "Baddis Ting" rhythm and got a pretty massive reaction. Mad Cobra didn't show but there were lots of random Channel U types performing a song each for a half an hour segment. There was even one girl with some cheerleader-esque dancers performing with her. She wasn't so good.

I won't bother to say too much about Mavado. Some people who like dancehall genuinely don't seem to like him. For me, his album is the best album of the year in any genre. No question. He performed most of the songs off Gangster For Life with a full band. The crowd knew every word. I wasn't standing in the best spot but I enjoyed it. It was nice to see a crowd of 1,000 people all having fun at a night they've paid 40 quid for. I don't get that all the time at nights I go to where people have paid a fiver.



It seems like I am the last person in the world to know that Jammer has an album deal with Big Dada. Why did no one tell me? I'm upset. It's like people didn't want me to know or something. That's not nice. Anyway, I think he'll do well. Jammer's obviously not the best MC in the world but he can make good songs and he's funny and has a bit of charisma. It was a big fuck up that "Murkle Man" never got a proper release. It had a great video already made and could have been as big as "Pow".

---

After A Breath of Fresh Ears and Lend Me Your Ears I've come up with an idea for the name of Ears' next project: Play It By Ears. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. "Play it by Ears." Get it? It's like "Play it by ear", but slightly different. Play It By Ears.

---

Saw a rather interesting article in The Voice called, "Is rap turning our girls into ho's?" There are some pretty choice quotes in there. It's an excrutiating read so if you can't be bothered to go through the whole thing, I think the gist of it is that hip-hop videos are making black girls become promiscuous and do drugs and the main consumers of hip-hop are "young, affluent, white men" so that is who we should blame.

"knologable and loyall"

Here's a Diplo interview where he talks about and shows footage of his recent project with Switch in Jamaica working with artists like Elephant Man, Turbulence, Tanya Stephens etc. I'm pretty excited about hearing all this stuff.



This summer, an Italian photographer called Joao Paulo Ribeiro approached me because he was coming to London and wanted to photograph some MCs from the grime scene. I gave him all my contacts and then he disappeared and I didn't hear back from him until today when he sent me a load of pics he'd taken. I've uploaded the best ones to my Flickr.

Willie Bounce

There's an interview type thing with Elephant Man on VBS today. It's pretty funny. It was done while he was in the Bad Boy studios in NY. He seems to be doing pretty well for himself now, eh?

One thing: Why is dancehall described as "The Jamaican equivalent to punk-rock"? It's not. It's the Jamaican equivalent of hip-hop. Why does everything have to be in terms of punk-rock? When people say stuff like that it makes them sound like they don't know what they're talking about.



Here is one of my favourite video clips of Elephant Man: him vocalling the Christmas Stagger Rhythm in someone's cupboard.

$$$

It seems the ICA is useful for more than being a really, really, really unsuitable venue for a grime night. Two interesting films were shown there today. I didn't go to see either of them unfortunately so I've been spending a while finding out what I missed.

The first is called Rent-A-Rasta. Here is some blurb from their website:

When white women flock to Jamaica for a little fun in the sun, the R&R they're often looking for is not 'rest and relaxation' but to 'rent a Rasta', according to director J Michael Seyfert. His eye-opening exposé sheds light on a barely acknowledged form of sex tourism: white women who visit the Caribbean to sleep with black locals - as many as 80,000 such women from a variety of relatively wealthy Western nations come to Jamaica every year according to this film. Framed from the perspective of the history of Jamaica, from slavery through the rise of the Rastafari to the present, we are shown a pattern of utter subjugation and economic inequality, with islanders providing stud service only being the latest form of exploitation.

The blurb makes it sound pretty interesting but the trailer looks awful I think. It makes the documentary look like a spoof - the cod-Caribbean accent, the borderline racist description of Rastafarians. It's like something Chris Morris might have knocked up in his time off between writing Brass Eye and starring in that so-called comedy, The IT Crowd.



The second is a documentary exploring the "long-neglected female side of reggae and dancehall music in Jamaica," called Queens of Sound. The subject matter could be a bit too Andrea Dworkin meets Oprah Winfrey for my liking but it stars people like Tanya Stephens, Macka Diamond and one of my favourite women-in-music-who-has-writtten-a-song-about-my-willy, Ce'Cile. I might try and track it down or something one day maybe.

"Hyperbolic, arrogant and criminally under researched cool-jockey"

My friend Richard showed my this the other day. It seems this guy flew all the way from Japan to come and dance in the street at this weekly event in Downtown Kingston called Dutty Fridaze.



Here is his female friend.



Saw this on Channel U the other day as I was briskly and erratically flicking through the channels to watch that shining beacon of resplendent modern day urban televised fiction BKA Dubplate Drama. Quite a lot of randoms in Fire Camp now. I'm guessing Mr Oizo knows nothing about it but they should try and release it I think. Catchiest grime song in a long while.



This sums up the pointlessness of Bonfire Night and all that goes before it, IMHO, FYI.

Pon de gym mat, pon de bank

Elephant Man has lost his mind. I thought Bad Boy had signed him to release music but it seems Diddy just wanted him to make some workout videos so he could work off his man boobs. A couple of points. First: why does the word "blazey" flash up when he says "blasé"? Second: my favourite move is the hand cart.



Don't Panic has put up an article where one of their journalists took Skepta on a date to the ballet. The best part for me is this:

“Where is your carnation?” I challenge.

“Oh shit yeah, I was told to bring one of those but I wasn’t sure what they were."

It's worth a read but it certainly pales in comparison and significance to my dates with Shystie (at The Natural History Museum), Mizz Beats (at The Ritz) and Judy from "Pow" (at London Zoo).

Anger Is a Gift

I've finally finished my mixtape. It is available to download here and the best tracks can be previewed on the MySpace page. You may have thought it was lost in history never to be heard (like Sharky Major's mixtape that was supposed to come out 3 years ago) but here it is. Most of the tracks on here are specials, dubs or exclusives. One or two were given to me as exclusives but ended up being released before I finished this because it's taken me so long to do. The others are just favourites that I always play when I DJ out. Here is the tracklist:

01. Intro
02. Virgo feat. B-Live & Flirta D - The Clack Riddim (Prancehall Special)
03. Tempa T - Tempz
04. Terror Danjah - Zumpti Huntah
05. Jammer - Toxic Freestyle
06. Yung Joc - Do Ya Bad
07. Brains - Plastic (Instrumental)
08. Scratchy, Skepta & Breeze - Vice Freestyle
09. Jitset feat. Jammer - Mary Jane Remix
10. Brains feat. Slinga, 2-Pac & Biggie - Thug Love
11. Matt Shadetek - Bump Bump
12. Lewi White feat. Busy Signal & Mavado - Vice Freestyle
13. Brains - Neva Eva
14. Big Kuntry feat. Yung Joc & T.I. - Yeah (Remix)
15. Mavado - Wah Dem A Do (Dexplicit Remix)
16. Rossi B & Luca feat. Scorcher - Not No Talker
17. Tinchy Stryder feat. Fuda Guy - Sick Ina Head
18. Matt Shadetek feat. Skepta - Reign
19. Jammer feat. Delishus - Vice Freestyle
20. DVA feat. Badness - Prancehall Dub
21. Ruff Sqwad - Untitled
22. Jammer feat. Ce'Cile - Prancehall Dub
23. Syer B - Badboy (Prancehall Special)
24. Slix - Down and Out
25. Statik feat. Faction G - Lily Allen Remix
26. Ce'Cile - Tell Me What You Love (Cheerful Riddim)
27. Ears feat. Flamin - Fergalicious Freestyle
28. Brains feat. Knuckles - Damn (Remix)
29. Riko - Prancehall Dub
30. Statik feat. Tempa T, Kraze & Esco - Bad Guys
31. Statik feat. Cham - Prancehall Story
32. Outro
BONUS TRACK:
Fish Go Deep - The Cure & The Cause (Jitset's 'The Chop & The Screw' Remix)

Some notes:
For track 5, I asked Jammer to do a vocal of "Toxic" after I heard him freestyle over it the night David Banner played at The Old Blue Last. For track number 10 my friend Jamie-James (who helped loads with this) had the idea of doing a track using the most famous deceased grime MC, Slinga from YGC, plus the two most famous deceased hip-hop MCs. He got some Slinga a cappellas off Jammer and then gave them to my friend Brains to build a track around the vocals. For track number 12 I got one of my favourite grime beats ever and gave it to VBS when they were going to Jamaica to film a documentary and asked them to get some dancehall MCs to vocal it. Mavado and Busy Signal both obliged and then when they got back, Jammer blended the two together to make one song. They followed Mavado around for a week to convince him to do it and then they had to sit around for seven hours on the day waiting for him to finally record the vocals. Having heard a different version of track 31 that Logan played on Kiss last year, Fuda Guy called up asking could he be on the mixtape. I went to meet him at some random train station in east London late one night to pick up a CD of tracks from him, only to discover when I got home that he'd just given me some really old track featuring him and Stryder that was released ages ago. He later emailed me track 17, which was an exclusive at the time, but I think it was released recently. Track 19 is another dancehall dub that VBS got for me in Jamaica, this time over a Jammer beat. Track 20 is the track I first heard Badness on. Faction G hooked it up for me some time last year and I've been a big fan of Badness ever since. Track 26 is by Ce'Cile and is all about my "big stick". This was another one from the VBS documentary in Jamaica and you can watch the making of the song here. The beat is an old Jammer classic.

There is a bit of a Bugsy Malone theme on this mixtape. Track 24 uses a sample from the "Down & Out" song off the Bugsy Malone soundtrack. After giving Slix the idea and sending him the song, he got Scholar (I never knew he produced either) to make a track for him to vocal. I really wanted to get Ears on the mixtape because he sounds good on pretty much any beat but wanted him to vocal something non-grime because I thought it would be more interesting, so went for "Fergalicious" because it's probably one of the most ridiculous songs ever. Riko made me two specials in return for DJing at his birthday bash last year. One made it on (track 29), the other was hip-hop tempo but I will use it for something one day.

Over a year ago, we held a studio session till three in the morning at Jamie-James's house with Statik, Esco, Tempa T and Kraze. Wiley was supposed to come down too, and kept calling Esco, but in the end he kept to tradition and didn't bother to show up. The sample in track 30 is another one from the Bugsy Malone soundtrack, as you probably already know if you've seen the film. I was going to get Tempa T to do a vocal of that "So You Want To Be A Boxer" song (because he boxes) but it never happened for some reason. The Cham freestyle (track 31) was one of the first songs I got for the mixtape. Statik went to Cham's hotel while he was over in the UK last year and got him to record a special for me over the "Boy" beat. Statik then licenced the beat to the Babyshambles' album or something, so he re-did the vocals over a new beat (which I think I prefer anyway). I can't be bothered to go through all the drops but I managed to get some from people like David Banner, Juvenile and 5th Ward Weebie. I was promised loads more but just didn't have the time to chase them all. The New Orleans drops were hooked up with contacts I got while I was over there last year. Finally, the bonus track is a chopped and screwed version of a funky house song that I got my friend Jitset to do.

Special thanks goes to: Jamie-James, Alex Sturrock, Daniel 7 Year Glitch, Ben, Statik, Brains, Jammer, Faction G, Jack Adams, God, Jesus, Mary, St Joseph, my gran, my two cats and Robert Mugabe.

(If the download link at the top doesn't work, click here to download the mixtape directly.)