Contents - Beth Lesser

Whereas during the ‘70s, specials had often been recorded by deejays,
throughout the ‘80s, it came to be the function of the singers. The rub-adub
sounds never used deejays on dubplate because they had them live in
the dance. But that too began to change. Papa Jaro watched as the idea of
making specials with deejays got a boost overseas, “We were in England and,
at first, those sound system in England, when they have a special dance they
would hire some of these local disc jockey from Jamaica to come and work
on the sound system as a guest for those sessions. But later on it started to get
expensive for them and they couldn’t afford to transport the guys physically
and they started to come down here and take those guys in the studio and ask
them to make the specials.”
Late ‘80s dances were characterized by the abundant use of specials. Producer
Gussie Clarke explains, “What made it so lucrative – if two sounds
were having a clash, it was like – this is what is going to decide tonight what
sound is going to win the clash – how many specials a specific artist who is
on top could do against the other artists. Those where the real drawing cards.
And that, in itself, became a business. ‘One sound killed another sound last
night because they had a John Holt special’. Then the next sound say, ‘The
next time I play, I have to get one too’. And there’s all these demands coming
down on the artists and they say, ‘OK, We need to be paid more and more’,
until it just evolved.”
The computer revolution, and the ensuing ease with which producers
could build new rhythms, facilitated the increasingly universal use of specials.
King Jammy began renting out his studio to other producers eager to come
away with master tapes full of specials voiced on the easily made computer
keyboard backing tracks. Anthony Redrose witnessed the quick jump in special
making. “Around ‘87, the specials thing really started. You know why? It
get commercialized. So everybody want to do it. Cause they come to dance
and see King Jammy alone can play a certain amount of tunes, everybody
start to come to King Jammy place now to book artist and cut dub. So, it
become commercialized where King Jammy start to make money off of it.
Cause people pay for the time to do dubs and the artist make a money now.
And you can do back the same dub now for ten diffident sounds. Anything
they hear King Jammy play, they want the same thing. We [artists] start to
make money off of it. I even build a property off singing dub [plate specials].
I build a place.”
Gradually, the specials business evolved into a high paying, highly competitive
pursuit in which the bigger artists could command any price they
wanted to voice a special. Once specials became the norm, no sound could
play without them. So, rather than hiring deejays for the night the sounds
began to invest their money in recording specials and the practice of deejaying
live began to die out.
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