Video: Busy Signal and Lloyd on Westwood

JA meets ATL as Busy Signal and American R'n'B singer Lloyd join forces on Tim Westwood's radio show with Chris Goldfinger and Robbo Ranx in attendance:

It's cool to see two artists so clearly enjoying each other's styles even though Lloyd gallantly admits that he "couldn't understand everything but can feel where Busy was coming from with it". Check how pleased Busy Signal looks with the whole situation while Lloyd sings over the Jail rhythm track. Or when Lloyd ducks away from the mic and cracks up at at the line, "mi call you last night, Lloyd call you back tonight".

As much as I enjoy lyrical war, I think ultimately I prefer the musical dynamics of collaborations like this, with singers and MCs sharing rhythms, melodies and backing harmonies. And sounding like, as Goldfinger puts it, they've "been doing this for years".

Other highlights:

• Busy's Cool Baby lyric over the Tic Toc beat at 1.45
• Westwood jumping in to end Busy's bars on Step Out
• Busy's sick double time chatting at 8.20 and at 9.40

Busy Signal's latest album Loaded is out on VP Records this month.

Posted by Gabriel_Heatwave | Saturday 06 September 2008 | 2 comments

Benny Hill riddim

Dancehall outdoes itself in the silliness stakes once again, demonstrating at the same time its skill in co-opting even the most outlandish sources and reversioning them in an interesting and devastating way.

This time, producer and artist Leftside samples Boots Randolph's Yakety Sax, perhaps best known as the theme tune for The Benny Hill Show, to create a fast-paced bashment rhythm propelled by handclaps, sax riffs and parping brass stabs.

MP3: Leftside - Benny Hill Riddim

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It's not dissimilar in concept to Leftside's criminally underrated 2006 Big Band riddim for the Gravi-T label, which never got the attention it deserved despite great vocals from Kiprich & Blacker, T.O.K. and General Degree.

This riddim at least looks like it won't suffer that fate: as soon as I heard it on Young Lion's excellent BBC 1Xtra show last week I knew I had to blog about it and also thought it sounded like a hit. And since then it's been flagged up by Cyan Wait, DanceCrasher and the people of Dissensus, though not always in a positive way...

I'm definitely with Pure Fire's Peter Gunn on the riddim's greatness and I love the sheer exuberance of Elephant Man's No Tikkle: "She nuh want Benny Hill, Benny Hill; want climb up Ele hill, Ele hill".

MP3: Elephant Man - No Tikkle

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Due to its use on The Benny Hill Show to accompany comedy chase scenes I've always associated this tune with a quaint, ridiculous and possibly politically incorrect old-fashioned Englishness. Actually I've never even seen the TV show, but references to it pop up everywhere and in fact I saw it on an episode of The Simpsons just a week or two ago.

So it's funny to hear Lady Saw and Leftside vocalling the rhythm track with hilarious country and western accents, though once the tune is divorced from its previous cultural context it's easy to see the country connection.

MP3: Lady Saw - Jealous

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And the Jamaica-Nashville link up isn't as unlikely as it might seem, as is made clear by the Skatalites' use of Johnny Cash’s Ring Of Fire, Lady Saw's 90s hit Give Me A Reason or 2004's outrageous Chaka Chaka riddim by Fire Links.

MP3: Leftside - Cowboy

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But still, the cultural confusion that is Leftside's Cowboy is pretty crazy, in a good way: hoe down pastiche, old English comedy, a vaguely distasteful pimps'n'hos theme, robotic autotune and a hint of Leftside's Dr Evil alter ego!

Timberlee's cut on the riddim pretty much entirely eschews the Yakety Sax melody and is definitely my favourite song about high heels since Ashanti & Nelly's Switch. I love how Timberlee also flips interestingly between vacuous American fashion speak, syrupy autotuned eurodance vocals and pure Jamaican chatting in what is probably her strongest release since last year's Bubble Like Soup.

MP3: Timberlee - Heels

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Posted by Gabriel_Heatwave | Wednesday 17 September 2008 | 4 comments

Top Cat alongside The Heatwave

Tonight I'm DJing alongside the legendary Top Cat at Get Me in Ladbroke Grove. He's fully versatile so we'll be playing classic dancehall reggae, foundation ragga, old school jungle, garage and whatever else he wants to spit on.

Top Cat has long been one of my favourite MCs of any genre: in 1990s London it was impossible not to hear and love his ragga flow on classics like Original Ses/Police In Helicopter, Champion DJ or RIP Groove.

Top Cat's prowess as a jungle MC goes without saying; for many people, the Congo Natty sound IS jungle. His 2006 track Everyday with Shy FX shows he can still cut it, and along with recent hits by Tenor Fly (Tarantula) and Jakes (Deep), shows that the ragga vocal in drum'n'bass continues to be devastatingly effective.

Top Cat & Tenor Fly in Bristol, 2006

I guess it's cos dancehall is what I like, but Double 99's RIP Groove featuring Top Cat's Request The Style vocal is definitely my favourite garage tune. I can't think of any 2-step tunes he's done, but I'm sure that's a gap in what I know rather than what he's recorded. It'd be wicked to hear the Cat rhyme over grime, dubstep, bassline or funky house. He could only kill it.

Due to his monumental success as a drum'n'bass MC, Top Cat's straight-up dancehall recordings are not always given the attention they merit. His 9 Live of the Cat album stands as a classic of the early 90s ragga era and features hits like Over U Body, Request The Style, Badder Than Dem, Push Up U Lighter and Pirate Radio Station.

I first heard the 80s dancehall original of his debut single, Love Mi Ses, on a tape of David Rodigan DJing at Subterania, the same (renamed) club we're playing at tonight. We featured that version on our An England Story compilation and a couple of years ago it was reissued on 7" but back then it was pretty much impossible to find and was one of the first dancehall tunes I remember hunting for.

Actually Top Cat tunes have often been the most sought-after things on my vinyl wishlist, and any second hand record bearing his name was always cause for excitement. It seems quaint now that so much music is readily available on the internet to remember how much of a breakthrough it could be to find a record you'd been searching for.

My favourite Top Cat track is probably his I Want You Back-sampling 90s ragga/pop hit Sweetest Thing, which I came across on an Italian dancehall mixtape about eight years ago. That bit of the tape got rewound A LOT before I eventually found the 12". The tempting Jackson 5 piano glissando which opens the tune is the signal for Top Cat to dive into his non-stop and unstoppable joyful, melodic flow. It encapsulates what I most love about dancehall: a totally original reinterpretation of something well known which simply commands the body to dance.

Recently Top Cat's gone back to his roots with a stream of dancehall hits like Sess Weh You Want for Curtis Lynch, Herbalist with Mungo's Hi Fi and Girl Of Your Dreams on a relick of the Cherry Oh Baby rhythm. He's also written the self-explanatory book How To MC, which I'd certainly buy if I had designs on the mic! There aren't many artists who are better placed to give such advice.

Posted by Gabriel_Heatwave | Friday 19 September 2008 | 3 comments

The Heatwave Chart - September 2008

The indomitable Beenie Man dominates this month's chart with three uptempo Caribbean rave tracks: leading the pack is his brand new single Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie for Jamaica's hottest producer for 2008, Stephen McGregor.

Closely following are our refix of Wiley's Wearing My Rolex and a track with Natalie Storm from Danish electro/house duo Enur's new album, Raggatronic.

Complementing Beenie Man's presence as the 'gal dem sugar', female artists are also well represented this month. Timberlee's Heels is the baddest cut on Leftside's crazy Benny Hill riddim, while Jazmine Sullivan's R'n'B/reggae hit Need U Bad is given the Crazy Cousinz funky house treatment.

Buraka Som Sistema drop their best single since Yah and reggae singer Aisha Davis delivers the stand-out vocal on Ward 21's remake of the classic Studio 1 rhythm Pressure & Slide aka What One Dance Can Do.

Plus Jay-Z's latest single, a robotic dancing instruction tune from Jamaican newcomers Taranchyla & Spider and Elephant Man's tribute to record-breaking sprinter Usain Bolt.

1. Beenie Man - Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie - listen
2. Beenie Man & Wiley - Rolex It Up (The Heatwave Refix) - download
3. Timberlee - Heels (Benny Hill Riddim) - download
4. Jazmine Sullivan - Need U Bad (Crazy Cousinz Remix)
5. Enur feat Beenie Man & Natalie Storm - Whine - listen
6. Jay-Z - Jockin' Jay-Z (Dope Boy Fresh)
7. Buraka Som Sistema - Kalemba - live video
8. Aisha Davis - Murder (What One Dance Can Do Riddim)
9. Elephant Man - Usain Bolt Nuh Linga (Look Gal Riddim) - listen
10. Taranchyla & Yellow Spider - Cyan Dance

Posted by Gabriel_Heatwave | Monday 22 September 2008 | Add a comment

Video: Capleton on Chris Goldfinger’s Radio 1 show

Isn't Capleton meant to be full of fire? He's sitting down while spitting here!

Still, he's sweet about his mum on the Drop Leaf riddim and smacks it on Showtime. And by the second time he attacks the Showtime rhythm track at 5.20 he's more energetic, standing up and bouncing around a little.

From lines like "crush them out like a cabbage" you get the impression that Capleton may actually be freestyling as well...

Posted by Gabriel_Heatwave | Tuesday 23 September 2008 | Add a comment

Mr Vegas - Round of Applause

Coming like something of a part two to his recent hit Daggering, Round of Applause is another minimal Mr Vegas dance track driven by hypnotic Afro-Caribbean percussion and insistent handclaps.

MP3: Mr Vegas - Round of Applause

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Vegas is in the UK until 6th October and is performing live this Friday at Stratford Rex in East London. Unfortunately I won't be able to make it as we're doing the Heatwave fifth birthday bashment at Salmon & Compass on the same night.

Mr Vegas's latest album Hot It Up is out now on Delicious Vinyl, featuring hits like Tek Weh Yuh Self, Taxi Fare, Hot Wuk, Lean Wid It and Raging Bull.

Posted by Gabriel_Heatwave | Wednesday 24 September 2008 | Add a comment

Our fifth birthday bashment this Friday

It's now five years since we launched our first night in Shoreditch, the name inspired by the scorching heatwave that hit the UK in the summer of 2003.

This Friday we'll be celebrating all that's happened since then at our monthly London residency, playing the latest and greatest dancehall reggae and bashment alongside x-amount of our own remixes and releases on the Punchline, Soul Jazz and Scandal Bag labels.

We're also joined by Bristolian DJ/producer Mr Benn, whose hip hop/reggae anthem Long Time featuring Blak Twang and Blackout JA is one of my favourite tunes of 2008, plus Rubi Dan will hosting the dance.

As a special birthday present to our blog readers, we're giving away plus ones on the free guestlist to the first two people to email info@theheatwave.co.uk. And there'll be birthday CD giveaways courtesy of Greensleeves Records and ourselves on the night

If you can't wait that long, right now you can download the mix CD we made all those years ago to give away at our first ever event.

Posted by Gabriel_Heatwave | Wednesday 24 September 2008 | Add a comment

It’s carnival time again!

Well, unfortunately not, but I've finally uploaded all the live recordings, videos and photos from the two carnival parties we played last month so you can relive them online as autumn sets in.

The live sets at the Immediate Sounds night are sensational, with Warrior Queen and Ragga Twins on fire performing to a noisily appreciative crowd:

• Warrior Queen live at Immediate Sounds
• Ragga Twins live at Immediate Sounds

Our sixty minute selection of carnival anthems and Caribbean rave music at the Major Lazer party in the heart of Notting Hill was recorded by Red Bull Music Academy Radio and is also available from our website. Watch the crowd jumping around to Top Cat's twice-rewound RIP Groove here:

We were back in Ladbroke Grove last Friday with Top Cat live in the flesh - he performed RIP Groove towards the end of his set and as ever it tore the place apart. Video of that performance coming soon - for now you can check the photos from the night.

Finally, a bit of Caribbean rave carnival remix action in the form of a free mp3 download:

Beenie Man & Wiley - Rolex It Up (The Heatwave Refix)

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Wiley's Wearing My Rolex was one of the biggest anthems of the UK's sun-starved summer and carnival season and it only seemed right to pair the rave-sampling electro-grime beat with some Caribbean MCing.

Posted by Gabriel_Heatwave | Thursday 25 September 2008 | Add a comment

Video: Dem Gyal Sitt’n Riddim

Not new, but too good not to post: eleven of the best Jamaican female MCs over a bubbling Ward 21 rhythm track with cartoon backdrops.

Vocals by Timberlee, Stacious, Tifa, Natalie Storm, D'Angel, Cecile, Ms Thing, Macka Diamond, Spice, Lady G and Queen Paula.

Posted by Gabriel_Heatwave | Monday 29 September 2008 | Add a comment

Silverlink feat Jammer & Badness - The Message Is Love

I wasn't entirely sure about this song when I first heard it. On paper it sounds great: a hype carnival anthem bringing soca, grime, bashment and rave music together. And the promo video featuring Jammer rampaging along Oxford Street is inspired.

But on my first few listens it seemed too clattering, maybe even too hype for its own good! I played it at last month's Major Lazer carnival party but the crowd seemed a little nonplussed and it sounded slightly odd following a couple of Caribbean soca tunes.

It made much more sense when performed live at the same party a couple of hours later, with Jammer jumping around on a speaker stack:

The vinyl is available to buy now from Juno among other shops and the digital release should be out this week, all on the Dirty Canvas label No Hats No Hoods. Watching the official video finally pushed me over the edge into liking the tune - the accompany visuals sum up the fun, carnival aesthetic perfectly:

Posted by Gabriel_Heatwave | Tuesday 30 September 2008 | 1 comment