DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA #7: "REAL" DANCEHALL!

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Just a lil somethin I thought up when I was gettin my hair blown out by a picturesque guido. It's a truism that applies to dancehall as well as hip-hop. Every time a revolutionary like Shaggy pushes the culture forward, a neo-reactionary contingent rises up to resist the changing of the cultural tide.

We're all familiar with the righteous traditionalism of "real hip-hop." Gappy Ranks is what you would call "real dancehall." It tries to set its scene in the same aural region as a PNP Rally, but it's studied where the original was spontaneous. Find a thicc gyal to bruk on mi cock and I'll be sounding my airhorns all over this Diploid simulacrum. In the back of my mind, I'll know I'm just dancing by myself in the back of a Johnny Rockets, and all the real soda jerks were long ago buried in their beds of malt.

DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA, #6: POST-SCAMCORE

A hearty wa gwan to my readership. DANCEHALL MSUIC HYSTEIRA back in dis mudflap.

Who can forget when Buju Banton and Nardo Ranks had a free and open exchange on the subject of skin bleaching? We all know what happened. Nardo Ranks became a cultural icon and nobody uses cake soap anymore.

History repeats itself. In recent years, the lottery scam has been celebrated in songs by Vybz Kartel and Lady Saw. Legit stars like Vershon and Tommy Lee Sparta, the Criss Angel of dancehall, even caught cases for their alleged involvement in these scams. The set-up is simple. Call up some poor old bastard and tell them they won the lottery. Ask 'em to send a lil money to pay for fees or taxes or some shit and watch the wire transfers pile up. For my gramps, it was some sprinkleheads from the Netherlands. They were even selling him magic crystals n shit, it was weird, I thought he was an old guy and not some new-age earthperson (RIP Gramps). Guess that's what we all gotta look forward to when we become wrinklebags.

Last year's scamcore included Vybz's "Western Union" and Xklusive's cumbersome "Scamma Dem Deh Yah (Big Money Popping)." Now we got this barnstormer. Some speculate "Dem Think A Chattingz" is a response to the Xklusive song. Basically they sayin, "Be about ya walk, not ya talk. Scamming? Where ya money at? 'Tain't nothin to brag about." It ain't exactly anti-scamming, but it ain't glorifying it neither. Anyway, moderately big chune! BO BO!

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I like scamming songs because they are rebellious, and it fits with the rebellious image I have of myself to enjoy punk counterculture songs about illegal activities, even though I would hate it if it happened to me or someone I care about, but I won't have to put my money where my mouth is until I'm staring down the barrel of a gun, which is unlikely to happen, or Alzheimer's, which I am genetically predisposed to, turns my brain to baby formula, and I'm sending my paltry Social Security checks to some guy in Montego Bay and a Thai cutie who likes me for my personality. So until that comfortably distant day, I'll keep promoting songs about selling drugs and swindling old people! I might even write a thinkpiece educating you on why bad things are actually good, and you'll just have to expand your mind you lumpen-dummy :)

DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA, #5: ATTACK OF DA CLONE

This guy buggin me out. He look like Vybz, sound like Tommy Lee Sparta, and dress like Michael Jackson. How they lettin a guy who looks like the reanimated corpse of a teenage pimp substitute-teach our video hoes? Public education system in shambles, blood. Strangest of all, a guy who looks like the personification of depravity—a dancehall Dorian Gray—chose as his subject matter a matter so triflin' as booty shaking. At least he scores w/ the principyal at the end of the video, lookin like the setup of a Brazzers sex travelogue. There was a Brazzers on Greensleeves back in the day, right? Think he cut some records with Sizzla.

DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA, #3

The rap-dancehall connec has been one of the most fruitful intercultural dialogues of our age. Where would we be witout WA DA DA DANG! or A LICKY BOOM BOOM DOWN! or Mavado applying Gold Bond to Rick Ross' XXXXL jockstrap? In 2014 Busy Signal returned the volley with some wicked man top spin, spittin hot fire and Peebo Bryson references over the rap chestnuts you was listenin to when you touched booty for the first time at the middle school dances deejayed by ya vice principal's nephew with the fresh fade and honeycomb Iversons, who crept on ya side bitches and took breaks to smoke Reginalds on the football field while tryin to figure out who the fuck was botherin him during his set blowing up his Motorola 2-Way.

Inhale da herb's essence and take a journey thru sound back to the glory days of Rap City, when Beenie Man made you cream ya dungarees goin in over the "Grindin" instrumental. All you need is Big Tigger droppin jolly exclamations here and there. If RAP MUSIC HYSTERAIA! becomes the culture-lifestyle vertical we seemed destined to become, we gonna fix that man up with a record deal and a podcast. A series of compilations w/ Tig droppin goofy freestyles with the hottest MCs in the biz - marble vinyl lathe-cut flexi-disc, limited pressing of 7. Chuuuch, my friends—chuuuch.

STACKIN BREADFRUITS

With summer approaching, I gotta put my skis away and hit the pause button on the winter warz I be fightin in my soul. You might catch me on a December night in my Arc'teryx and Lugz, warming my frozen limbs by a dumpster fire in Hialeah with Rip the Jacker on repeat, but by June ya boy has transformed into the Mayor of Margaritaville.

The song of the summer probably won't be a rap song. As we all torture ourselves trying to find it, I'ma be listenin to Chi Ching Ching and sippin on some spiked moss. RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA is an extremely lucrative blog, but as a side hustle I work nights as a dispatcher for Miami's fourth largest yellow cab service. As I fill the dispatch room with caffeine farts, my man Waggy T been puttin me on to new sounds via his Friday night show on WEDR. This is where I first heard Don Andre's "Tom Cruise," which is better than most songs from last year. Chi Ching Ching appeared on the remix, and now he has a great song about eating breadfruit. Now that every other rap song is about taking prescription drugs, it's refreshing to hear these wholesome dancehall fellows extolling one of nature's many non-narcotic bounties. His new song "Nacho" is also very good and food-centric.

I thought dancehall was on a downward spiral once Vybz got locked up and the snoozefest known as Popcaan became its new poster boy, but now I'm so jazzed up I'm filling out paperwork to start my own breadfruit farm. Rap music's misogyny, homophobia, and glorification of violence have really been bothering me lately, so perhaps this site will soon be known as DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA!