Murda She Wrote: July 2022
Summer heats up with blazing dancehall tracks by Skeng, Spice, Kabaka Pyramid & Damian Marley and Tanya Stephens & Patra.
by Reshma B
“Everyone’s feeling pretty,” Stevie Wonder sang on “Master Blaster (Jammin’),” one of his most reggae-infused tunes, released in 1980, five years after he and Bob Marley became friends, rocking Jamaica’s National Stadium in the legendary Wonder Dream Concert. “It’s hotter than July.”
From the return of Reggae Sumfest to the crowning of a new Dancehall Queen, this July has brought plenty of musical heat. As usual MSW has you covered, so press play as we raise the temperature on your summer session.
Skeng
“Vibes”
To close dancehall night at Reggae Sumfest is a career milestone that few artists will ever achieve. You have to have serious star power to hold the attention of a restless crowd that’s been raving all night as the Montego Bay moonlight gives way to an island sunrise. To achieve this feat the very first time you’re booked to appear at Jamaica’s biggest music festival is nothing short of a dream come true.
Skeng is at the forefront of a new wave of dancehall artists who blew up during the pandemic and are now just beginning to step out on international stages and show the world what they can do. He rose to the top of the local charts with hard-hitting songs like “Gvnman Shift,” a bleak badman tune that spoke to the mood of the moment — “fully dark, fully charge and fully crab up,” he warned. “Dis me, you mussi sick … mi finger move swift, mi gun dem nah stick.” The 21-year-old artist balances his catalog with aspirational tracks like “Live Large,” which paints a ghetto youth’s dream in vivid colors. His latest release, “Vibes,” produced by DropTop, bigs up his Ratty Gang while showing and telling what it takes to follow in his footsteps: “haffi have vibes inna dis,” he advises.
Born Kevin Douglas in the west Kingston garrison of Craig Town, Skeng gravitated to music and dancing early in life. Blessed with wild charisma and a powerful voice that explodes from his skinny frame, he grew up admiring Shabba Ranks — with whom he hopes to collaborate one day — and gained massive inspiration from the musical energy of the Gaza vs. Gully rivalry of the 2000s.
After his family moved to Spanish Town he began bouncing from school to school until he decided to devote himself to dancehall. Skeng went on to lock the streets from Jamaica to Brooklyn to Brixton with the “intellectual murder people edition” vision expressed on tracks like “Brrrp,” “Ypree” and “Duppy Dem.” His rise has not come without controversy: Last month Skeng was banned by Guyanese officials after some of his fans there fired gunshots to celebrate as he performed their favorite song, “Protocol.”
The sun was high in the sky as Skeng exploded onstage to close out Sumfest dancehall night — which was by that time officially dancehall morning. “You haffi clean as a badman,” Skeng told the crowd as he stepped out in Burberry, from bucket hat to backpack. Flossing like this is all part of what makes Skeng a “Hot Topic.” But the July sun was now getting too hot for his outfit. He soon discarded most of his gear, but not before noting how much he paid for it.
Spice
“Clap Clap”
Spice’s showstopping performances are always a highlight of Reggae Sumfest. Year after year dancehall’s reigning queen finds a way to outdo herself, taking the stage on a motorcycle, inside a giant bubble and on a queen-sized bed. The return of Sumfest in 2022 was no exception, as Spice blasted off with an outer-space theme, leading a troupe of dancers wearing astronaut helmets and glowing blue goggles.
No Sumfest would be complete without a blazing Spice freestyle. This year she riffed on Brysco’s X-rated hit “Code” — which inspired a new dancehall use for Ensure nutrition shakes and caused such a fuss it was criticized by Jamaica’s prime minister. On the Sumfest stage, Spice challenged the political leader to spend less time criticizing popular music and focus on working to ensure the welfare of the Jamaican people.
Just one week before her Sumfest appearance, Spice dropped “Clap Clap,” a new single from her highly anticipated project Emancipated. The high-energy follow-up to her Grammy-nominated debut album 10 will be released in August via a new partnership between Stealth Music Group and UnitedMasters. This August will be a big month in Jamaica as the island celebrates both the emancipation from slavery and its 60th anniversary of independence, which happens to fall on the 6th, Spice’s birthday. The title of her new album is also a reference to tensions with her previous label, which she first alluded to on her 2018 mixtape Captured. “The entire project is called Captured because that’s how I feel with my record company right now,” Spice told me at the time. But all that is in the past.
Right before her intergalactic set came to a close, Spice was surprised to see Sumfest MC Fluffy Miss Kitty and CEO Jo Bogdanovich walking onstage to officially crown her Queen of the Dancehall — 10 years after Lady Saw’s coronation on that same stage. “Spice, I come to tell you that Montego Bay, St. Catherine, the entire Jamaica proud of you!” Miss Kitty said. “You are a consummate performer. You are one of the most iconic lyricists in dancehall — not as a man or a woman but as a dancehall artist.” Once the jewel-encrusted crown was placed upon her trademark blue hair, Spice thanked Miss Kitty and all of her fans and then launched into “Needle Eye” without missing a beat, ruling the stage like a queen should.
Kabaka Pyramid & Damian Marley
“Red Gold and Green”
“Wave the banner from you know your soul clean,” Kabaka Pyramid sings on his latest single, “Red Gold and Green.” The fresh-cut roots-reggae anthem features a blazing verse from Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley, who also produced the track. “Some of them ah wear the colors and them nah do them research,” Damian chats, dropping knowledge about the significance of the hues sported by Rastafarians and reggae fans worldwide.
The colors are derived from the flag of Ethiopia, whose emperor Haile Selassie I, also known as the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, represents nothing less than a Black messiah to the Rasta faithful. The significance of the colors is open to interpretation. “Red for the blood that flowed like a river,” Steel Pulse sang on their 1982 song “Rally Round,” offering a popular reading of the meaning behind the colors. “Green for the land Africa … yellow for the gold that they stole.”
“When we wave the banner around the world,” Kabaka explains in a press statement, “we bring the teachings and inspiration of Haile Selassie I to masses, some who see the depths of Rastafari and some who just see it as a style and strictly music. We want people to know that we take our tradition and heritage seriously and that these colors have a deeper meaning than just a colorful brand. All are welcomed to join the vibration, but it’s also good to take some time to get to know the King and add meaning to these divine colors.” Kabaka has been spending long hours in the studio with Jr. Gong over the past couple of years, working on the follow-up to their 2018 collaboration, the critically acclaimed album Kontraband. If this first fruit of their labors is any indication, their next project has enough lyrical firepower to run the place red.
Tanya Stephens & Patra
“Fifty”
One of Jamaica’s greatest living songwriters, Tanya Stephens has built a rich catalog of timeless classics spanning the genres of dancehall, reggae, pop and soul — to name a few — since the mid-1990s. Although she detests the idea of her creativity being confined to any sort of box, she understands all too well that limiting female creativity is a speciality of the music business.
“I work in a misogynistic and patriarchal industry,” she told me recently. “Everything about female life gears us toward almost giving up after 30. Like everything that’s good about being female is centered around being young. But getting older actually means being better at being me.”
Earlier this month Tanya turned 49. To celebrate the occasion she released “50,” a joyfully defiant collaboration with dancehall icon Patra. The song comes from Tanya’s 10th studio album, Some Kinda Madness, which is due out on the Tad’s Records imprint this September. “If you think we bad now,” Tanya and Patra warn on the hook, “wait until we lick 50! Dem ah go say how dah big woman get so frisky?”
Tanya says she’s looking forward to reaching the half-century mark, and wants this song to encourage all women to embrace their greatness at every age. “At 50 I start again,” says Tanya, “and I’m going to be a raging skettel bomb!” (A skettel bomb is an old dancehall term used to describe a woman who is not afraid to express herself and her sensuality — with volume.) “I’m coming out swinging. I’m going to be loud and raucous and brawling and embarrassing. There were many times when I was embarrassed. Now it’s my turn to embarrass other people.”
She says she couldn’t have chosen a more perfect partner on this song than Patra, the early ’90s dancehall star that Tanya hails as the “original queen trendsetter.” “Patra became successful and visible way before me,” Tanya says. “So everything that she did preceded what I did, and pieces of her automatically got into pieces of me. I loved that she was so expressive. She just came out and did things that I think Jamaican women weren’t really allowed to celebrate — you know, like being so sensuous. When she was in the ‘Pull Up to the Bumper’ video in that little black outfit, I think every one of us women who came after her has that image in our mind, engraved. That’s an indelible mark that she made.”
“Woman have to embrace themselves,” Patra told me in a high-energy Zoom chat with Tanya. “Cause for me I age in reverse. You understand what I’m saying? I was so tired in my 20s. In my 30s I was close to making some serious decisions, then I went down again. And then within my 40s I feel so sensual, like a real woman; I feel like I’ve arrived! This song is so amazing that I think women should embrace it. When you reach maturity you’ll be able to articulate yourself and know who you are and be confident. We don’t have to prove yourself to anybody. Just be who you are, love who you are, and that’s what Tanya brings out. That’s why I love being on this record, and we are ready to take it to the world. It’s woman time now!”
