Contents - Beth Lesser

Squiddley
The story of slackness wouldn’t be complete without Squiddley Ranking,
Peter Metro’s little brother and ‘Jamaica’s skinniest deejay’. Squiddley could
hold his own with the big boys and he was completely dedicated to slackness.
“When I was a little boy, me and Peter Metro, we used to go to dances and
listen to Johnny Ringo, Welton Irie and General Echo – they were the slack
deejays – slack, real slack – and we would say, we want to be like them.”
Squiddley chose to follow the slackness path while brother Peter stayed
largely with culture and reality. Perhaps that explains why Squiddley was noticed
first. By 1982 he was a well known, up and coming deejay on Gemini,
while his brother didn’t make his name on Metromedia until ‘83/ ‘84.
Squiddley and Peter grew up with in Arnett Gardens, a.k.a. Concrete Jungle.
At first, their parents were not too happy about their choosing musical
careers. “When I just started they never like it too much. [They thought] Peter
and me never going to make it in the music. We make too much noise, and we
have to deejay slackness and it don’t sound right and reh reh reh… until about
five years after that when I went to England in 1983 on Gemini sound on tour
with Welton Irie and Johnny Ringo. I went to England for eight months on
tour. When I came back, my family them say, ‘Whaaa?! Money a mek!’ and
that’s the time now them start say, ‘Well, stick to it’.”
As a youth, Squiddley used to deejay smaller local sounds like King Phillip,
Stax Disco and Hot Sizzler. His lucky break came when Ringo and Welton
left Gemini temporarily. At the time, he was deejaying a small sound named
Black Hawk who used to play in his home area. “Johnny Ringo and Welton
leave the sound and go to Virgo, so Gemini was searching for some younger
artists and I was the one who was available at the time. I was a little bit
maaga * , good looking, and bad.”
Right off the top, Squiddley was into the slackness. ‘The reason why I
deejay slackness, I think you get more attention. People love hear about sex.
And when you sing about a girl and you ‘turn her this way’ – or about how
your Johnny is big – people wan’ hear that something there. That is the reason
Lady Saw and Tanya Stevens bus ’ out so quick. When you deejay slackness,
you quicker fe bus’ than even a man who sing culture. I think people love hear
sex argument ** .” The other reason for the popularity of the genre for budding
deejays, according to Squiddley, “When you deejay slackness, you get more
girls.” As evidence, Squiddley, points out his numerous progeny. At last count,
he had 13 children, between two weeks and 23 years old.
The downfall of Gemini
Everything was going smoothly with Gemini on top and its deejays rack-
* Skinny
** ‘argument’ meaning theme
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