THE SAGA CONTINUES

Part two of the daunting task of pruning my record collection, and organizing the remains, as I move to a new, less-Lofty apt in Bed Stuy . I spent the entire week entering the Hip Hop into Discogs. Boxed up 18 crates. The Dancehall Reggae collection is way smaller in volume, as it’s more utilitarian, and less about archiving – so sorting has been less laborious. That said, I found it pretty complicated to meaningfully organize. Let me explain…

 

For the stuff I’m gonna part with, the same principal applies: If I look at the label, and don’t immediately hear the song in my head, it’s gotta go. For the stuff I’m keeping, I first considered organizing it by the different categories of artists you find within Reggae:

SINGERS

Dennis Brown

Beres Hammond

Gregory Isaacs

Johnny Osbourne

Frankie Paul

Dawn Penn

Sanchez

Garnett Silk

Cocoa Tea

Etc

Within the singers you have “Singjays”, who both sing and chat, and they’re essentially their own lane. But there’s a lot of grey area here, and some space for internal debate as well.

 

SINGJAYS

Eek A Mouse

Barrington Levy

Courtney Melody

Pinchers

Tony Rebel

Michael Rose

Tenor Saw

Shinehead

Wayne Wonder

Etc

Then you have pure Deejays, who strictly chat, more or less, and I would wager they make up the bulk of Dancehall artists.

 

DEEJAYS

Beenie Man

Bounty Killer

Ninjaman

Lady Saw

Shabba Ranks

Supercat

Etc

Within the deejays, I considered further segregating the gravel-voiced dudes, who all sound like a variation on Cookie Monster. I don’t know exactly who gets the credit for inventing this trend in Jamaica. Prince Far I? Pat Satchmo? You tell me. Some contenders include:

 

GRAVEL CREW

Buju Banton

Burro Banton

Red Fox

Jigsy King

Mad Lion

Reggie Stepper

Etc

Within gravel crew, there’s a sub-category of cats with a more nasal, gravel effect, who aren’t quite Cookie Monster in tone

 

NASAL GRAVEL CREW

Joseph Stepper

Tiger

Pampidoo is probably the king of this style, tbh.

Do Bobo Dreads get they get their own category? Bobo Dreads, if you are unaware, are a sect within Rastafaians who are disciples of Emanuel aka King Emanuel Charles, who formed his own church in the 1950s in Bull Bay, JA. Bobos often dress more like priests, in long robes, and they cover often their dreads in head wraps. Their faith is centered around the holy trinity of Prophet (Marcus Garvey), Priest (Emmanuel), and King (Haile Selassie). Capelton would strongly advise you to “diss the trinity” at own peril.

 

BOBO DREADS

Anthony B

Capleton

Sizzla

Turbulence

Junior Reid?

Josey Wales?

Felt like I was getting into the weeds a bit… so I stopped and reconsidered all of it. Like the Hip Hop archive, I’m trying to make this intuitive, so that the future me – the cranky, bald, bad knees, 75yr old me – knows where to find that copy of White Mice’s “True Love”. This made me consider the following:

 

THE ERA

In my head, I generally associate artists with a particular decade. In truth, most of them spanned several, but I tend to lock them in one era or another.

BUT WHAT ABOUT TEMPO?
When I was DJing regularly, reggae crate organization was pretty simple. In my head, I have always kind of reduced dancehall to two general speeds: SLOW and FAST. Slow being stuff like Pinchers’s “Agony” (85 bpm) VS fast being stuff like Like Lenny's "Bum Flick” (106 bpm). This is wildly simplistic, obviously, as BPMs fluctuate all over, and often lingered beyond 120 after the year 2000 (Sean Paul's "Temperature").

It would be great to sort deejaysVS singjays VS singers, or by tempo, but these strategies ignore yet another important central organizing principal in any reggae collection: RIDDIM. The plot thickens, indeed.

 

Songs on the same riddim often get played back to back, and there are a ton of collabs between deejays and singjays and singers - on various riddims at various speeds - that prevent you from segregating them. Many DJs whole collections are organized by riddim, of which there are hundreds, if not thousands. Here’s a few faves:

Yet another sorting conundrum is 12”s VS 7”s. I prefer 12”s, as they are just easier to wield when playing, they don’t require a 45 middle, and their sound quality holds up longer over time. But there are lots of riddims where I have some songs on 12” and others on 7”. Typically, these would often all get sloppily stuffed into a single, bulging 12” sleeve - for quick access. Speed is a unique challenge in Dancehall, since any juggler worth his weight in ackee will be able to run through 6 songs on the new riddim in under 5 minutes. Real reggae DJs have huge road cases with 7”s painstakingly organized by alphabetized riddims. I am low-key jelly of this, but it just never suited me.

 

In the end, after all this, going for intuition first and foremost, I came full circle. I stuck with my existing, messy system of SLOW vs FAST, loosely grouped by RIDDIM. Glad we settled that.

 

I’ll end this with a quick list of BOSS REGGAE NICKNAMES

The Don Gorgon

The Gargamel

The Wild Apache

The Cool Ruler

The Mellow Canary

The Energy God

The Poor People's Governor

The Bush Doctor

 

NEXT UP: THE HOUSE