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Chris Martin & Richie Loops - Summer Spazz
To signal the northern to southern hemisphere baton change of seasons I had planned to do a major feature on the pick of this year’s summer songs. Without turning this into a tumblr sob story I was near the end of it and the post was accidentally deleted. So here is my abridged feature concerning the best songs of the recently completed Jamaican summer.
Lyrical trends have always been central to Jamaican music. Ranging from culture music to slackness to lovers to badmind tunes, it seems there is always one or two lyrical themes dominating the make-up of the charts. In recent years a new trend has been added to the rotation - the summer song. While I’m sure it wasn’t the first, the tune which was the catalyst for this trend in my opinion was the Ding Dong/Chevaughn collaboration, Holiday. Since then in a fashion almost akin to the race in the UK to be no. 1 at Christmas, dancehall music has seen artists vie for ‘di song fi di summer’.
This year has probably been the hottest contest yet, with Kartel, Mavado, Beenie Man and Tarrus Riley all weighing in on the race. The Chris Martin and Richie Loops collaboration above came at the tail-end of summer and while high on the cheese meter, I still rate.
Songs for Summer 2011:
Mavado - Final Destination
