bassline on this radio rap tune is pure junglizm circa 94-95

cf

yet another song i heard on Power 106

which is the station in this town for street rap -- i.e. commercial but X-rated / minimal / hardcore...

the most aurally striking stuff you can find on the FM dial

cold and dry and hard and stark

Tyga... "Beez in the Trap"


in some senses it's just the barest extension of  the rap i liked so much in the early 2000s (dirty south, crunk, ludacris, ruff ryders etc etc) that then turned into trap

but with a High Definition upgraded quality to the production - more space and glisten... the drums at once emaciated yet with a dimension to them that feels like a quantum leap

it's like if crunk/dirty south was a movie, and this new sound is the movie digitally converted to 3D

 a lot of it, including many tracks i've not been able to identify   (because the djs neveR say what the tune or artist is), has echoes of Northern bleep or jungle

so that again adds to that slight doubt feeling of "is this really new?" because if it's not exactly a reiteration, neither is it much more than an incremental intensification of a long established template

(and for sure, the lyrical content, being utterly retrograde, adds to a sense of stuck-ness, arrested development...  a culture ever more narrowly focused on the nexus between sex and money)

still

it does have, at least, that aura of NOW about it

(cf EDM or Cataracs-style radio/club  dancepop)

you listen and you think, "it's 2012"

maybe a 2012 that hasn't advanced on 2002 as much as one would have expected, in 2002

but still contemporary

beyond lies the wub - in-depth piece on the history of dubstep and emergence of EDM by Joseph L. Flatley at The Verge --  w/ quotes from me, Martin Clark, Joe Nice and many more

 a quote from me:

 "I just went to the Hard Festival over the weekend. The thing I liked about it was that this was music that had absolutely no sense of the past being better. In house culture, or even dubstep in Britain, there's a lot of referencing of roots reggae, or the early days of house, or the early days of jungle. In dance culture, the purist stuff, there's sort of this in-built reverence to the past. And what I liked about the EDM vibe, there's none of that: it's just like 'now, now, NOW.' And if you happen to know about music you could hear things that harken back to [earlier dance music], but that really doesn't seem to be what the kids are into. I sensed [a vibe of] 'this is our music, this is our generation.'"

a quote from Flatley:

"Despite the circuitous route the genre took, the controversy and the metamorphoses, the promise of dubstep is still a bassline wobble implying something that feels absolutely true: The past is over.

All that matters now is what we do going forward.

So let’s go."

"Jack it up selector! The Heatwave cram the biggest UK hits to come out of Jamaica into one crazy mix: 50 years + 83 tunes x 73 minutes = approximately five million rewinds. These songs have been pulled up, wheeled, rewound and replayed literally MILLIONS of times - in bedrooms, house parties, blues dances, nightclubs and raves throughout the UK.
To celebrate 50 years of Jamaican independence, The Heatwave’s quickfire insanity-inducing DJ style is applied to half a century's worth of classic tracks. 50 years of Jamaican sounds hyping UK ravers. How many times will you rewind this mix?"

http://soundcloud.com/theheatwave/five-million-rewinds

[via The Stranger]

TRACKLIST
1. Jimmy Cliff - Miss Jamaica
2. Millie Small - My Boy Lollipop
3. Prince Buster - Al Capone
4. The Techniques - Queen Majesty
5. Slim Smith - My Conversation
6. Marcia Griffiths - Feel Like Jumping
7. Eric Donaldson - Cherry Oh Baby
8. Desmond Dekker - Israelites
9. Max Romeo - Wet Dream
10. Trinity & Marcia Aitken - Three Piece Suit
11. Althea & Donna - Uptown Top Ranking
12. Junior Byles - Fade Away
13. U Roy & The Paragons - Wear You To The Ball
14. Bob Marley - Is This Love
15. Janet Kay - Silly Games
16. Louisa Marks - Caught You In A Lie
17. Mad Professor - Kunta Kinte
18. Augustus Pablo - King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown
19. Mighty Diamonds - Pass The Kutchie
20. Horace Andy & Tappa Zukie - Natty Dread Weh She Want
21. Jacob Miller - Tenement Yard
22. Culture - Two Sevens Clash
23. Aswad - Warrior Charge
24. The Specials - Ghost Town
25. The Specials - A Message To You Rudy
26. Sugar Minott - Good Thing Going
27. Dennis Brown - Revolution
28. Barrington Levy - Murderer
29. Triston Palmer - Raving
30. Papa Levi - Mi God Mi King
31. Sister Nancy - Bam Bam
32. Tenor Saw - Ring The Alarm
33. Wayne Smith - Sleng Teng
34. Half Pint - Greetings
35. Smiley Culture - Police Officer
36. Tippa Irie - It's Good To Have The Feeling You're The Best
37. Beres Hammond - What One Dance Can Do
38. Admiral Bailey - Punaany
39. Super Cat - Mud Up
40. Shabba Ranks & Krystal - Twice My Age
41. Cutty Ranks - Limb By Limb
42. Chaka Demus & Pliers - Murder She Wrote
43. Mr Vegas - Heads High
44. Beenie Man - Who Am I
45. Glamma Kid - Moschino
46. Shaggy - Oh Carolina
47. Ratpack - Searching For My Rizla
48. SL2 & Jah Screechy - On A Ragga Tip
49. The Prodigy & Max Romeo - Out Of Space
50. Dawn Penn - No No No
51. Deep Blue - The Helicopter Tune
52. Gregory Isaacs - Rumours
53. Leviticus & Jigsy King - The Burial
54. Top Cat & Congo Natty - Love Mi Ses
55. Congo Natty & John Holt - Police In Helicopter
56. General Levy & M Beat - Incredible
57. UK Apache & Shy FX - Original Nuttah
58. Ritchie Dan - Call It Fate
59. Zed Bias, MC Rumpus & Nicky Prince - Neighbourhood
60. Ms Dynamite & Sticky - Booo!
61. So Solid Crew - Oh No
62. Pay As U Go - Know We
63. More Fire Crew - Oi
64. Kano - Boys Love Girls
65. Dizzee Rascal - I Luv U
66. Benga & Coki - Night
67. Richie Spice - Marijuana (Coki Remix)
68. Serani - No Games
69. Mavado - So Special
70. Mr Vegas - I Am Blessed
71. Sean Paul - Get Busy
72. Tony Matterhorn - Dutty Wine
73. Donaeo - Party Hard
74. Lil Silva - Seasons
75. Lil Silva - Different
76. Gracious K - Migraine Skank
77. Damian Marley - Welcome To Jamrock
78. Cham - Ghetto Story
79. Gappy Ranks - Stinkin Rich
80. Gyptian - Hold Yuh
81. Vybz Kartel, Popcaan & Gaza Slim - Clarks
82. Beenie Man & Future Fambo - Rum & Red Bull
83. Stylo G - Call Mi A Yardie


"Reggae runs through UK pop music like jam in a Swiss roll — from Desmond Dekker's "Israelites" at #1 in the charts to the skank feel in 2-step like Doolally's "Straight From The Heart", via The Police's "Walking On The Moon", The Specials' "Ghost Town", Madness’ "Grey Day", Musical Youth's "Pass The Dutchie", and all those one-off reggae crossover chart-toppers that seem to happen every couple of years, at least when I was a youth — such that Jamaican music is simply part of any British person's pop birthright" -- yours truly.