For the intrigued outsider, ragga provokes the same split response as gangsta rap. You can dig mightily the booty-coercing phuturism of the production, but wince and flinch when it comes to the ideology. Like gangsta, ragga lyrics are all guns, bitches and blunts. Just as fogies lament gangsta & swingbeat as a degeneration from the olden golden days of soul and funk, similarly nostalgics see today's digital reggae as spiritually bankrupt compared to '70s roots and dub. Certainly, Rastafarian militancy/mysticism has given way to a secular, solipsistic worldview, oscillating between sexism and sadism. But sonically, Jamaican pop remains as creative and compelling as ever.
Judging dancehall/ragga by Shaggy or Chaka Demus is like thinking 2 Unlimited are all you need to know about techno. The fierce, far out stuff is the hordcore--that's where you'll find the strangest, staccato-est beats, the starkest productions. "Ragga Ragga Ragga 2" (Greensleeves) is a good entry point for the uninitiated. Ragga is reggae with its fluency turned to erectile rigour (one track here is called 'Spermrod'!). The key factors in this shift to stiff are 1/ digital technology 2/ Jamaica becoming a stop-over for the cocaine trade in the early '80s. And so ragga's sound--crisp and dry, all itchy'n'scratchy computer-game blips and fidgety tics of percussion--sounds like nothing so much as electro, while its palsied rhythms suggest coke-jitters rather than a marijuana-moonwalk.
Fierce competition to be fresher than the rest results in weird'n'wonderful production gimmicks, like the gastric-rumble bass-sounds on Papa San's "Sireen" or the mud-squelch noises on Red Dragon's "Burning Up" (which fit the lewd lyrics). Like gangsta vis-a-vis '70s funk, sampling allows ragga to simultaneously pay homage and wreak iconoclastic damage to '70s reggae: on Saba Tooth's 'Warp Dem Girl', a tiny wisp of ethereal, rootsical keyboard floats amid the clanking machine-beat, while Lt. Stitchie's 'Wood Fire' is cyber-dub. In fact, ragga is at once futuristic and atavistic: many of its rhythms come from African-based cult religions like Etu, Pocomania and Kumina.
Another excellent introduction to dancehall is 'Ragga Sampler Volume 1' (Charm). The standout track is Buju Banton's 'Mind Behind The Wind', which slots the usual gruff, chest-puffed-out bragging amidst undulating tabla-like beats, oddly reminiscent of avant-funk visionary Arthur Russell's "Let's Go Swimming". Another highlight: Galaxy P's 'Hardcore', porno-ragga so hyped its rhythm-mechanism almost seizes up. 'Just Ragga, Volume 6' (Charm) showcases several examples of a new trend: duets like Jigsy King & Tony Curtis' 'Any Man Yu Want' which combine the hoarse, coarse vocal grain of ragga with swingbeat's sickly slickness. The contrast of rough lust and oily, unctuous pleading is interesting, and dancehall and new jack have obvious links, production-wise, but I prefer the pure ragga of the Spragga Benz tracks here: the Einsturzende-meets-martial-drums battery of 'Dem Flap', the squelchifarious twitch of 'Gi Wi Di Naany'.
Ragga has generated few artists capable of holding your interest for the length of an album. On Terror Fabulous's 'Yaga Yaga' (East West), maestro Dave Kelly's production & beats are subtly inventive but soft-core, and the songs are sweetened with treacley harmonies. Fab's persona is sort of ragga without the aggro: boastful, bawdy ('Water Bed Expert') but never brutal, a ragga LL Cool J instead of a Schoolly D. Where's the Terror? Still the album does git raw toward the end with 'Mr Big Man' and 'Broke Wine Butterfly', which reprise the epileptic anti-grooves of Buju Banton classics like 'Big It Up' and 'Bogle Dance'.
Much more unsound and exciting are Bounty Killer Versus Beenie Man's 'Guns Out' and Ninjaman's 'Hollow Point Bad Boy' (both Greensleeves). The ultra-minimal sound (both are produced by King Jammy) is as dessicated, skeletal and 2D as electro. Beenie's 'Off The Air Bad Boy' and Ninja's 'Write Your Will' each revive the famous Casio-synth B-line of 'Under Me Sleng Teng', the first electro-reggae hit, while Ninja's 'Wap Dem Bubba' is full of wikky-wikky voices. As for the lyrics, they're relentlessly sociopathic, albeit leavened with a macabre wit ("Deadly Medley"). Ninja's "Hollow Point" takes its title from bullets designed to flatten on impact, mushroom through the body and inflict maximum internal damage (nice one, Ninj!), while he's barely two bars into 'Bad Boy Nuh Cub Scout' before he's namechecked Uzi and Tek 9 ("name brand gun!"). It's cartoon gangsta stuff, perhaps to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Beenie's 'Mobster' is just one of myriad ragga tunes sampled by that strain of jungle I call gangsta-rave. So finally, a word for 'Jungle Hits Volume 1' (Street Tuff), which scoops up most of the ragga-jungle cuts that count, from General Levy's roisterous 'Incredible' to Shy FX's bloodcurdling 'Original Nuttah' and 'Gangster Kid'. The compilation's in the Top 3 Album Chart as I write--no doubt about it, this is '90s pop, the sound of young Black Britain.
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