Speaking of which RULE 2 – autotune should only be allowed in Jamaica.
Because Jamaican voices right now have nothing to hide or correct – in Jamaica autotune find voices that can match, outwit, outgun it, contrast with it – voices that make the beast with two backs even as they’re being compressed into the atomised spray of gamechair-pop. The pop nous in Jamaican pop’s bloodstream, the ear for hooks and the vocal ability that knows 300 pre-programmed fake notes cannot compete with the RIGHT note at the right time means that, in dancehall, digi-tech finds itself beautifully harnessed, harshly treated, commandeered in pop’s name rather than putting its size-tens all over it’s fragile neck. Listening to the biggest hits in dancehall from 2009/10 the contrast between the likes of Steven McGregor’s charged-up control of modern mixology and hip-hop’s dumb demo-setting obviousness is crystal clear – dancehall’s biggest names, from Vybz Kartel’s Gaza coterie to BKiller’s Alliance clan (and everyone operating in the no-man’s land between those combatants), create singles that burn themselves to the memory’s hardrive like the nastiest viruses, singles that CARE about percussion, detail, those tiny moments that can become huge without sounding like gestures or gimmickry. At no point in the best dancehall does anything sound smeared indiscriminately across the mix, everything down to the tiniest fizz or pop is there for a reason.
For the weeks that they corrupt you no other sound seems as desirable but unlike hip-hop the point of contact is vital here – out the tiny, flinty confines of your computer fuggedaboutit (& I can’t go to dancehall clubs as I’ve been assured by those juvenile fans I know that as an old Asian man I’d get shot). At home, dancing with the kids (kids love this stuff – just be aware the lyrics might require some, ahem, explanation/ euphemisation) you get dazzled. You need good headphones or big speakers to make the beats and bass work their magic, to make the voices walk tall, like they’re real people lost & let loose into a different world every riddim change, a different place in regard to themselves. Everything earmarked as reasons US rap sucks right now find new life in Jamaica: autotune loses its imperialist smarm and finds itself in the mouths of doubtful, desperate, deranged, driven-mad-by-lust propa pop singers (and if the interminable snoozeworthy disswars that plague US rap seem pointless, then at least the Gaza-Gully turf wars in Kingston pop are as absurd & action-packed and kinda like WWE as these things should be).
At the moment the sound of Jamaican dancehall is the sole reason Antares Evo-Pro plant must not be located’n’liquidated – the only adequate rebuttal to the legions of luddites currently looking to eject autotune from pop’s craw. Jamaican producers, musicians and singers (who, let’s face it, since the days of Steely & Clevie through Bobby Digital have been obsessively busy with digital-music for longer than anyone) have made the new kit work dammit, they’ve hit the balances because the humans involved USE the device, not t’other way round – there’s no less control behind the desk, but there’s voices grown up enough to lose control behind the mic, and lose control melodically, tunefully. Harmonies don’t just intertwine in dancehall, they’re too interesting to pull pat moves, rather they disperse like snipers, move like a swat team, pop off across the mix and assail unexpected peripheries. The producer is in his heaven, and all is right with the world.
Likewise, when the Europeanization of US hip-hop (all those trance/house textures so bemoaned by US hip-hop purists, like Ford-workers watching Merc engines lifted into Mustangs) translates to Jamaican music the effect is ambiguous, confusing, wonderfully threatening to dancehall’s stern sexual politic. Set against the none-more-macho lyrics all that none-more-gay lushness starts calling the machismo & misandry into question, starts making it sound desperate, pathological. Voices launch out but find themselves uploaded to the ether in a gurgle of chrome, defused of outward danger but launched lethally in on themselves. The same production tricks that make so much US rap sound like so much unjustified ball-ache & bull-shitting strands the protagonists of dancehall in a soundworld in which their violence & randiness start sounding like addictions, like problems rather than unproblematic prejudices. Partly it’s down to the music’s refusal to simply stomp – dancehall’s impetus is so often found on the soca-step, silkily on the snare rather than the kick, so all the delirious digi-detail (that flashery that r&b puts at the heart of its current deterioration) flies away from the centre of the sound, flitters and flutters around the voices rather than having to change or correct them. Partly it’s down to the sheer wonder of the voices themselves: on the staggering ‘Sumpn 4 Ya’ by AIDONIA seems constantly breathless in anticipation, frantic, lurid, downright spasmodic on an eternal brink to a particularly sticky end – the macho-ness of the man always prone to the uncoolest moments of genuinely losing it, losing control, his verbal acrobatics always carrying the threat of falling without safety-net, returning to the gasp and the groan and those petit-mort noises the grown-ups make. Where US r&b is so painfully in search of the hook it always ends up bobbing in lukewarm waters clinging onto only what’s most-obvious, Aidonia naturally, fluidly, intersperses his dizzying lightspeed verbals with moments of pure grunt, squeal, shudder – and these moments become things you want to hear again and again. Further, Jamaican voices tend to not go for range, big leaps or Carey-esque oral-batics between notes. Rather it’s the frantically fast rotations around a simple melodic riff that make these tracks so demanding of your time, so bewitching, so devilish, so human. ‘Sumpn 4 Ya’ is a record that spins on the edge between mind and body, and the body always breaks on through to the voice, makes it do things the words, dazzling as they are, can’t let out or release. Repeated replays (for you will if you care about pop) and the key becomes clear. ‘Taint the trancehall backing or jabs of palpitating synth or even that planet of bass you seem to be orbiting. All gorgeous but no-one else rode the Outbreak riddim quite like Aidonia – when Aidonia yelps you’re inside it, when Aidonia screams you shiver, when Aidonia sounds like he’s into the heat of the final fuck moments the music just evaporates in the white-heat of your relationship with that voice. It’s doing weirdly classic things (think Teddy P, Barry W) – things only the rewind can reveal, things unfathomable and unfeasible – things you HAD actually been led to expect from Aidonia’s other big tracks (‘Rifle Me Bark’, ‘Thunderclap’) which are just as excessive to requirements.
Because no matter what’s going on behind the scenes in pop, if the right people aren’t in place, shit won’t happen right. In Jamaica, unlike nearly everywhere else on the planet, the right people are making music.
These are voices under stress, under pressure, squeezing out their trigger-happy testaments before the sky falls or hell opens below or the front-door gets kicked down. The best voices in dancehall right now, ERUP, MAVADO, AIDONIA, BUSY SIGNAL, STACIOUS (No Freak and Head), TIMBERLEE (check the ace ‘Fashionista’), CE’CILE, the outrageous LISA HYPE (go back and listen to Face Facts & The Truth), NATALIE STORM (go back even further and hear ‘Look Pon Me’ and ‘Dip & Fall’) sound like they’re singing to survive, punching against music and fx that bounces their threat back on themselves, the sounds heavy, lush and lethal enough to push the extreme extroversion of the singers inward to the curious helium-bubble of the production even as the beats rampage on, 
the doom and dread and apocalyptic gunplay/perp-smoking/sexuality only ever damaging to the frantic, frightened personas behind the voices, never to the listener. Best riddims I heard this Winter were the stompin’ ‘Gunshow’ (Aidonia’s uproarious ‘We Run Uptown’, Mavado’s stunning ‘Everything Inna Hole’, Elephant Man’s slightly-knackered ‘Boy Dead’), the robo-soca of ’10 Long 10 Strong’ (Bugle’s eloquent ‘Unlimited’, Kartel’s Imagination-style undulation-fest ‘Seductive’, Leftside’s way-freakier ‘Magnum’ & ’2 By 4′), the livid ‘lectro of Style & Swagga (‘Assassins Wanna Be Ballaz’ , RDX’s startling ‘Deliver Mi’), Death Row’s mournful glide up the long road through the cemetery gates (Movado’s ‘Sing Song’, Stein’s ‘Bad Mad Straight’) & Thunderball’s spy-movie stealth (Aidonia’s ‘Thunderous Clap’, Stein’s military-industrial ‘Slow Motion’). In contrast to the drek hip-hop/r&b tried to warm us with the past few months, these tracks are hotter than the sun put in the microwave for ten minutes too long. Go go go seek and mind your minds. Stuff can burn your synapses.
BUT, new decade, lowered expectations. Amidst all this future-fuckery the return of Steely & Clevie’s nutzoid ‘Steel Frog’ riddim esp. with Capleton’s ‘Lip Lip Lip’ is some retro I can live with, even if it casts a baleful, withering light on dancehall’s current progress. Tbh I simply wouldn’t bother chasing riddims anymore. Keep on top of the shit bubbling on Youtube or even better (esp. if you’re an old tech-unfriendly fucka like me) stick to mixtapes, for we’re not in a golden age and we are lazy. We’re in an age where despite r&b’s current paucity of newness, dancehall is still managing to take on and twist American styles into interesting new shapes: but the deeper disease, the lack of imagination in mainstream US r&b / rap is fatal for much dancehall as well – the return of ‘Steel Frog’ posits an intriguing thought that mebbe it’s time for Jamaica to turn away from US influence a little, seek out their own unique lineage and slant a bit more often. The response of Jamaican voices to US decay is just strong enough, just inventive enough right now to still find ways of being fascinating to anyone in earshot.
And if Tighten Up was the bargain-pack tropical-transmission of choice in the 70s then now you have no excuse not to be checking out the Dutchman DJ Triple Exe’s Pure Winery series 4-6 (ace wee dubbed-out segues and technoid rerubs included), 2010 mixes from DJ I Kandi and DJ Waxfiend, DJ Greedy’s Famine 4, DJ Aliaz Reggaefest 2010, DJ Polombo’s Bells Of War, Mischief Sound Crew’s Fever 2K10 mix, Chinese Assassin DJ’s Prepared For War 3 or DJ MBA’s Outbreak 2 mixes this month. Let them do the hard work, pack together the hits, lash lightning strikes to your dome/home (and it’s particularly intriguing hearing how US & European DJs inf[l]ect dancehall with their own techno-traditions). Crucially even at our distance from dancehall’s daily motors & moodswings, keeping up with riddims
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