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Keepin’ it international by submitting a yardie… Carlene, Jamaica’s first dancehall queen, and an early hood femme crush.
Check for her and some other gorgeous hood femmes in the Chaka Demus & Pliers video for “Murder, She Wrote”:
(via strugglingtobeheard)
I love my people, man. Dancehall! A clip from the video of Sean Paul’s version of “I’m still in love with you.” (YouTube link)
Some people (usually not Jamaicans) claim you can’t possibly top the original in popular music generally or specifically in the case of this song.
I won’t pretend that Alton Ellis’s version (YouTube link) isn’t my favorite. The Rock Steady genre tends to trump Dance Hall with me anyway. It’s got more soul and the bass riffs are just as strong.
That’s fine. But that concept of not revisiting classics isn’t taboo in the Jamaican way of approaching music. Many of the cats that built ska and rocksteady, later becoming reggae, were cover bands covering Jazz standards anyway.
Versions (wikipedia link—just to sketch an idea, research for the concepts of versions/versioning are available on Google Scholar) are as critical a part of dancehall and Jamaican music culture as wining one’s hips.
It’s not going anywhere and nothing is untouchable.
TED x Irie: Kingston, Jamaica
Ebony G Patterson and her work is inspiring.
She mentions Trelawny. Nice.
