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Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

Having just gotten back from Kingston, I can tell yah firsthand that dancehall is not what it used to be, even what it used to be three years ago. People still go out at 1:30 or 2am but the days of dances that run through to the next morning are mostly gone, replaced by mainland style venues shut down at 2. Monday is no longer the night to go out, and although mid-week street dances like Weddy Weddy Wednesdays still run but they’re just not the same and even the immortal Passa Passa is in a place of on-again-off-again hotness. Likewise dancehall fashion is not as competitive or creative, and for first time I can remember since I started following Jamaican music there’s no riddim that is THE sound of the moment. But as with one drop explosion of ca. 2005 the dance craze of the last few years that saw choreographers and selectors becoming rock stars in their own right hasn’t disappeared, it is just maintaining at a simmer-down level til people are ready for the next wave. So basically instead of 20 dances dominating the scene there are only two at any given moment. At this given moment those two are the Sweep and the Daggerin. More on daggering later but for today check out the Self-Defence riddim (from Skatta, the genius behind the Coolie Dance among many other hot riddims), which spawned the Ele single “Sweep” as well as vocal trio Voicemail’s version on the phenomenon over an exclusive Daseca beat. Voicemail also seems to be owning reggae video outlets right now with the Jay Will produced medley “Get the Money/Gangalee” which combine a 90s throwback tune and their answer to Fire Links’ Drumlane riddim in one clip.

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Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

Greetings from beautiful Jamaica, land of wood and water and mastodon speaker cabinets. Much of the breezeblock conversation I’ve been having with music biz persons since I’ve been Kingston, posted up against the side of a van in the yard of Jammy’s studio in Waterhouse or over a Q of Appletons on the terrace at Medusa’s has to do with how the traditional avenues of bussing an artist in dancehall—riddims, 45s, soundclashes—are phasing out. more...

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

Yeah I know y’all are just wrapping your heads around bringing ’88 back what with the Retro Kids rocking gumby fades and Mars Blackmon wears but in Jamaica doopses are living so fast-forward that they have already been brought back the '90s. In fact, it seemed like them shits were not even over before people in Kingston started talking about '90s throwback riddims, like shouldn’t there be a 10-15 year statute of limitations on something before you bring it back? I can remember the term being applied at least as far back as Assassin’s “As A Man” and Leftside and Esco’s “Tuck in your Belly” when the Gigi and the Sleepy Dog riddims were the next big thing in dancehall. That was 2005, which is like bringing the '50s back in 1965. Hell, the SIXTIES had barely started in 1965. Jamaicans; can’t you let a decade get it’s own sound properly established before you get so bored with it that you start recycling previous ones? more...

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

Angola is one of those words that resonates with meaning way beyond the little square inch on the map it designates. For Namibians and South Africans, Angola was a second home to the ANC in exile back in the days of Apartheid and a source of Radio Freedom broadcasts—a place across the border to get to and join the freedom struggle. For Brazilians, Angola is the ultimate birthplace of much of their African culture. The oceanic depths of pride and suffering that Angolares conveys there and throughout the Portuguese-speaking world probably can’t be translated into English, but you can taste it a little in the sodade that Cape Verdean diva Cesaria Evora sings. more...

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

Actually I just figured "New Sean Paul Tunes" was the dancehall equivalent of putting "Free Beer" on your spam email, this column is actually going to be an infomercial for erectile dysfunction treatments. PSYCHE. Sean Paul is indeed back on the juggling case with a ferocity, voicing a mess of new chune after an extended absence. He’s not the type of contentious clash artist to even claim the "king of dancehall" title but having broken every record imaginable for a reggae artist he is definitely the high priest or maybe the viceroy of this shit; at this point whatever he does is an all-important sigil for anybody who cares about the direction of dancehall as an industry and an artform. In my HO he also happens to be one of the most consistently nice deejays to ever dub a plate, clash credentials or no. Lucky for me and dancehall, rumors of a new album in the works for later this year are circulating along with a barrage of new 45s and guest verses . What follows is basically a heap of recent things that I cut together in no particular order, ranging from a few months to a few minutes young. more...

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

This week is dedicated to the explosion of coupe decale—uptempo madness out of the Ivory Coast which is making a lot of noise in Europe and all over the African diaspora, along with some other tracks inspired or related to it, including some Angolan kuduro from DJ Znobia. I could get all anthropological and delve into the context of it but other more knowledgable people have already done that.
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Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

Things have been a little crazy in the office today but any day you can unveil a brand new riddim run from Stephen “di Genius” McGregor--who is quickly becoming the FADER’s favorite dancehall auteur—is a good day. more...

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

This week I wanted to shine a light on the Freestyle riddim, the extremely stripped-down soundtrack to Busy Signal’s current 45 "Cool Baby" along with a riddim run of Bobby Konder’s "Go Go" riddim. "Go Go" has been playing in the juggling for some months now--I think ex-FADER editor Nick Catchdubs put me up on it back around New Years--but it fit not only rhythmically but conceptually (freestyle, go-go— get it? If there was a hi-NRG riddim I would have thrown that in, too). At the end I tacked on one extra Collie Buddz tune on 2006’s Sidewalk University riddim (if you need justification, see the Collie Buddz clause established in Ghetto Palms #2). more...

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

You need look no further than the pages of the current issue of FADER to know that Demarco is straight caning it back a yard right now, both as a producer and as the reigning auto-croon singjay. So it seemed destined he was finna get his own column and it seemed doubly destined it was fittin to start out with a run of the “Shoot Out” riddim which he a) produced and then b) killed by voicing the biggest tune of the set on "Duppy Know Who fi Frighten." more...

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago. This week, guest columnist and selector extraordinaire Walshy Killa of the mighty, mighty Black Chiney Soundsystem test drives the Drumlane riddim.

Ever imagine yourself in church, like one of those real Roman cathedral looking ones, and then just jumping up, breaking the shit out of everything in sight? Well, the Drumlane would be like the background music as you do it. more...

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago. This week, FADER O.G. And guest columnist Max Glazer of the internationally known Federation soundsystem runs through the “Dem Gal Sittin” riddim plus some other current 45s from female DJs

Since the weather is finally starting to break and Summer is right around the corner, I figured it would be appropriate to spend a little time with some of the lovely ladies of dancehall. While at least a third of all dancehall music is dedicated to the hot gal dem (the other two-thirds being devoted primarily to guns and ganja) there have traditionally been only a handful of female DJs. 2008 looks to be a promising year for female talent with a new crop of ladies representing for their sistren and even going toe to toe with the fellas. On to the music! more...

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

Since the new issue of FADER just dropped it only seemed right I should dreadicate a column to Brooklyn’s enfant terrifabolous Ricky Blaze, who I shadowed around Crown Heights and Flatbush for a feature in the mag. Like cover stars Glass Candy and Lil Boosie, Ricky is what you might call a divisive figure. The partisans mostly split up along generational lines ie big-people dancehall and reggae purists are a little skeptical of his auto-croon production values, while under-21 youth who came up on Passa Passa dubs and YouTubes of the "Chicken Noodle Soup" dance fuckin love him. Like they literally can’t stop jumping up and down until all hours of the morning. more...

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

So I started this week’s column with the intention of including two blends, one of the Warning riddim and another set of tings that just kinda flowed together. But I had songs from my favorite new artist De Tropix that fit in both and I couldn’t decide between them so ultimately I threw everything in one long-ass blend. more...

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

This newish thing on the Truck Back label has been getting a lot of burn lately, mostly in the form of “Click Mi Finger” by Erup, who along with Bugle has been name-checked by basically everybody as the new dude to watch for the last year or so. more...

First off, one minor correction from last week: Selector JD from Deadly Dragon correctly and annoyingly pointed out that the Stone Love throwback riddim that I listed as “I Do Love You”--after the Heptones classic Shinehead covers on his white label version--is actually “Rocksteady,” originally by Alton Ellis. Whatever. In the interests of science, it’s actually the bass and drums from “Rocksteady” and the horns from the “M16” riddim aka the Uniques’ “Secretly” but nobody cares.

Anyway, he more than compensated for that shit by putting me up on a brand new tune from everybody’s favorite Bermudan Collie Buddz, which inspired this week’s first blend. The 45 is an evil combination between Collie and his idol (he told me this) Bounty Killa on a riddim that sounds like a mash up of the Carmina Burana chords from Nas’ “Hate Me Now” and the “Tempa” bassline. It seemed like a good excuse to run both some of my favorite under-utilized Collie tunes and some definitive joints on the “Tempa.” more...

“Ghetto palms” is what we used to call those little bamboo-ish looking trees that sprout up in empty lots and the cracks between sidewalk blocks. Sometime last year my Mom sent me clipping from the papers in Detroit that broke down how they’re actually a species from China spread here by container ships. Fact: in China it’s called Tree of Heaven. Fact: city planners can accurately calculate the length of time a house or city block has been abandoned by the size of the ghetto palms. Ever since then, ailanthus altissima has been taking over the back-lot of my brain like an invasive tree in Brooklyn, too crazy not to be a metaphor for something deep. Some kind of underground ecology—a science of things that grow where they’re not supposed to—is about as good a mission statement as any for what I’m trying to do with this column, plus it just had a ring to it. I had a mess of funny but too-literal ones like “Things That Make You Say ‘Forward’” and “There Will Be Dubs,” but abstract and slightly pretentious just felt more, you know, me.

Appropriately the 1st time out is entirely dedicated to 45s from Kingston, which has its share of both ghetto and actual, factual palm trees. This column, like my DJ sets (hell, my life) will be heavily dancehall-influenced, but will dip into other international waters with UK bhangra, Angolan kuduro and whatever fits.
-Edwin "Stats" Houghton more...