Contents - Beth Lesser

There is a posse in the corner, all of them just a ball out fi ‘murdeeee’ * )
But let me hear you say Woaaaa (chorus: Yeaaaaa), Woaaaaaa (chorus:
Yeaaaaaaa)
Woa, Yea, Woa, Yea…….
Put it pon the table, Put it pon the table, It’s a number one **
Johnny Osbourne, a singer with phenomenal output throughout the ‘80s,
took the sing-jay style even farther, by ‘speed sing-jaying’ in his mega hit,
‘Rewind’.
As the ‘80s progressed, it became expected that even recording singers
would be popular in the dance and know how to come up with lyrics on the
spot, just like a free-styling deejay. For the new generation, who were growing
up in a musical culture dominated by dancehall, it was already second nature.
“All those songs was written in the dance,” Echo Minott says of his large
output of lyrics. “I was in the dance before I started [to] record. So, when I
start to record [on] those rhythms, it’s no problem to me, cause I know how
to ride them. Those was my pet rhythms. I sing on them every night on sound
system. So, it’s no problem when I am in the studio. I already have it.”
Pad Anthony recalls going into the studio to record in 1986 and being
presented with a variety of rhythms selected for an album, and being expected
to write the songs and record them right away – all in the same session. “They
also had a lot of rhythms that we would just go in and listen to a beat and start
writing and recording. Those times my brain was so quick. I could just hear
the beat, find a punch [line] and start recording. I did an album, Pad Anthony
meets Frankie Jones *** and all those songs was just straight from my head. I never
wrote nothing on paper in those days. Had to be sharp.”
“Actually, back down in those days, we never use pen and paper to put
things down,” recalls Barrington Levy. “It just make the vibes, and you catch
the melody and you just work it from there.”
Johnny Osbourne came up with his huge hit, Yo Yo, on the spur of the
moment at a dance. “Them thing deh ya just come spontaneous. Sometimes
I’m at a dance and my bredren keep bothering me to sing a song, for hours and
hours. I say ‘alright’ just to stop them from bothering me. [I] just go there and
hear a rhythm and make up something without any meaning and, after everybody
start liking it, I have to record it or somebody else will do it for me.”
Even in dancehall songs that contained traditional style vocals, the singing
style came off a little different, often less melodic and more rhythm driven.
In the song ‘Yu Woulda Wrong’ (Super Supreme), Tristan Palma uses the
bass line to guide his vocals (just as Little John recalls doing in ‘Work Us So
Hard’), resulting in a choppy, vocal that follows the shape of the backing track
* Murdee means Murder – a popular exclamation meaning great, excellent.
** Buddy Bye, Johnny Osbourne, Jammys, 1985
*** Hell in the Dance, Pad Anthony and Frankie Jones produced by Delroy Wright for Live and Learn,
1986.
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