The year 2011 in Reggae & Dancehall times three.
posted on January 6th, 2012 by Tobias in Article
The people behind three of our favourite Jamaica-related blogs – Sensible Dancehall, Soundclash and Marvin Sparks – have published their personal rundowns of the year 2011 in Reggae & Dancehall. Enjoy:
Sensible Dancehall: Twenty Eleven Round-Up
2011 has been a crazy year for dancehall. Vybz Kartel started with massive hype releasing his first breakthrough crossover record with Dre Skull in June, and ended facing prosecution for multiple murder charges. Mavado’s year began with a string of hits, signing to one of the biggest American hip hop labels, but ended with the cancellation of his UK tour. Sean Paul released a massive cross-over pop hit and was all over the music channels and radio whilst Daniel Bedingfield, of all people, ventured to Jamaica and started going in (hard) over dancehall riddims.
Soundclash: 2011 in Reggae and Dancehall (Pt. 1)
Yes, one could list a lot of reasons that demonstrate that 2011 was a bit of a loser for reggae and dancehall, or could complain (with support from a range of, well, older folk) of how “static Jamaica’s musical progression has become”, but that runs contrary to the reality that there still was a multitude of quality releases, tunes and riddims.
Marvin Sparks: World a Dancehall/Reggae + impact on mainstream in 2011
Basically, I don’t remember bashment having this impact on over here, as in British artists having so much dancehall material in it’s rawest form in my lifetime. I weren’t around for Saxon and Coxsone sound days, unfortunately. I’ll show many examples of those song which have been popular, in addition to remixes of some of the biggest mainstream singles of the year and international artists that did their version of reggae/discount dancehall. I love it I tell ya.
Share your thoughts.