JA bashment meets UK funky

• By Gabriel_Heatwave | 
• Saturday 02 May 2009 | 
• 26 comments | 
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The soca/dancehall drum patterns and relentless dancefloor energy of funky house have made it a perfect fit for my bashment-dominated DJ sets in the last couple of years - particularly the tunes and remixes featuring ragga MCs.

In the last few months, some of the biggest tunes in the London rave scene have featured bashment-influenced vocals: Donaeo's Party Hard, Lady Chann's Your Eye Too Fast and Ms Dynamite's Bad Gyal. Heatwave MC Rubi Dan has been busy too, dropping his distinctive London/Caribbean flow on funky house releases by Chinski and Grievous Angel.

And of course, the trend in funky for tunes calling out dance moves - Migraine Skank, Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes and the hilarious but excellent Stupid Skank - is a direct nod to Jamaican bashment dance songs like Dutty Wine, Gully Creepa or Row The Boat.

Two way traffic

Now it seems that rather than just absorbing and adapting Caribbean influences, the sound of UK funky is crossing the Atlantic and starting to cause waves in Jamaica.

Almost every time I've tuned into to London bashment station Mystic FM recently, I hear funky house played by Jamaican radio hosts who are clearly loving it, sometimes rhyming in patois over instrumentals.

Last week, Jamaican dancer turned MC Chi Ching Ching (above) was on Robbo Ranx's BBC 1Xtra dancehall show talking about hearing funky at London bashment night Uptown Splurt. "Da song deh a go hard", he said about Donaeo's Party Hard , and told Robbo, "trust me I'm gonna do two funky house songs," before doing an acapella variation of the Donaeo tune.

MP3: Chi Ching Ching and Robbo Ranx on BBC 1Xtra

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Also last week, I heard bashment artist Aidonia's vocal version of the funky house hit Inflation by Crazy Cousinz. This is the development I've been waiting for since the Afro-Caribbean rhythms of UK funky first first made me reach for the airhorn.

Listen: Aidonia & Crazy Cousinz - Bounce

As well as these clear-cut examples of Jamaicans listening to and engaging with UK funky, artists and producers in Kingston and London are moving in remarkably similar ways.

Lil Joe's vocal style in his cut on the Swagga Dagga bashment riddim is reminiscent of Donaeo's, and his use of 'jeez!' to punctuate his flow echoes London MCs' use of the same phrase.

MP3: Lil Joe - Hey Yo (Excerpt)

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The ravey synths, orchestral hits and snappy snares of Mr Lexx's uptempo dancehall tune Everyday bear a striking resemblance to the polished production of UK funky, though the beat itself is pure bashment and lacks the four to the floor of house music.

It's unclear whether these similarities are conscious or unconscious, but the lack of clarity as to exactly who is influenced by who is perhaps what's most interesting. The increased musical connectedness between Kingston and London thanks to digitial music and online networks means that musicians don't need to operate within small geographical scenes any more. Ideas and influence can spread rapidly, being shared and shaped by anyone who's feeling them.

Haven't we been here before?

Of course, similar interactions between London-centric dance music and Jamaica have happened before. Jungle, garage, grime and dubstep all borrowed much from dancehall reggae, both sonically and culturally e.g. heavy bass, clashes, dubplate culture and rewinds. However, they haven't had so much influence or impact in Jamaica, though there have been meeting points: the Greensleeves ragga jungle projects, Beenie Man alongside So Solid Crew, Harry Toddler on the Pum Pum grime riddim or Sizzla voicing MRK1's dubstep production.

One barrier has been the difference in tempos: jungle worked as it was twice the speed of much dancehall reggae, but until very recently Jamaican artists have not regularly recorded in the 130-140bpm range which garage and its offshoots inhabit.

Another barrier has been the difference in production values. I've heard Jamaicans dismiss UK dance music as 'techno' or 'Ecstasy music', while Starkey Banton famously called jungle, "one bag a noise and a whole heap a sample". But in the past few years these barriers have diminished. Since the groundbreaking Coolie Dance riddim in 2003, there has been an explosion of uptempo bashment productions at 120bpm and above - traditional house/dance music tempo. Sometimes speeds have risen further, with more recent riddims like Global (128), Higher Altitude (134) or Tremor (144).

Dancehall production styles have also become closer to dance music in recent years, with ravey synths and four to the floor beats featuring more and more, such as in riddims like Mad Rave and Inevitable. As producers on both sides of the Atlantic use the same software to programme their beats, the sonic connections between the different genres are becoming easier to make.

Consequently, many contemporary bashment tracks are closer to funky house than any previous strain of dancehall has been to UK rave music. When the Jamaican blog Dancehall Mobi featured Aidonia's tune with Crazy Cousinz, it was simply described as his new "soca/dance-flavoured single" - not something a million miles removed from his normal dancehall output.

Moreover, the rhythms of funky house drum beats draw on Afro-Caribbean rhythms which have long formed the backdrop for dancehall, soca and reggaeton. So for Jamaican artists to rhyme over funky house tracks requires no great leap or shift in approach.

Not enough MCs, too many gripes?

In fact, perhaps the main opposition to the meeting of bashment and funky will come from the UK rather than Jamaica. The political wrangling in the London scene at the moment is often characterised as a split between soulful, vocal house and grimey, bashy MC-dominated tracks.

Indeed it's the latter style which lends itself so well to a dancehall crossover. Gappy Ranks, Maxwell D and Lady Chann (below) all have big tunes out with their Jamaican-influenced flows over UK productions blurring the line between bashment and funky.

MP3: Lady Chann & Sticky - Your Eye Too Fast

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Any 'controversy' surrounding MCs in funky could well be killed off with the arrival of Jamaican vocals on house instrumentals. I can understand people's frustration that relatively unskilled MCs might dominate funky, but who is going to argue when Mavado, Beenie Man or Busy Signal spits on their productions? They make most other MCs look like children.

It's also worth noting that the melodic, dancehall style of MCing suits funky so much better than the more full-on approach that some English MCs favour. Donaeo, perhaps the most successful vocalist the UK scene, has a half-MC, half-singer style which strikes me as a UK take on the Jamaican 'singjay' style of artists like Mr Vegas or Mavado.

What next?

It's going to be exciting to see how all this develops. The explosion of UK dance music in the early 90s somewhat eclipsed the growing English dancehall scene, so it's only right that London bass might be kickstarting a new chapter of JA/UK musical connectivity and creativity.

To catch some of the heat, come down to FWD>> this Sunday. I'll be playing a bashment vs funky set, rattling the bass bins and shaking your hips.

Then catch me on Rinse FM next Thursday alongside London city warlord Riko Dan (above). I'll be in the mix, rolling back to back bashment/funky riddims, with Riko doing his Cockney/Yardie thing and drawing the links live.

Plus I've nearly finished my bashment refix of Party Hard featuring vocals from Vybz Kartel, Capleton, Rubi Dan and Danny English. This should be available to download on our website in the next week or so - keep your eyes peeled.

And there's much more soon to come. Watch this space.

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• By Gabriel_Heatwave | 
• Saturday 02 May 2009 | 
• 26 comments | 
•