Tag: Dawn Penn

  • Dawn Penn, Chaka Demus & Pliers, Beenie Man and Elephant Man Shell Down BET Awards

    The Award Show’s First Ever Dancehall Showcase
    beenie-man-bet-awards-thelavalizard

    Year in and year out, the BET Awards have become known for show-stopping performances. But the water-cooler talk this year isn’t about the latest hip-hop posse cut, it’s about the awards’ first-ever mashup of reggae and dancehall superstars. Opening with Dawn Penn’s Studio One classic “No No No” the set segued into Chake Demus & Pliers’ “Murder She Wrote” which had the venue of rap and R&B superstars  skanking and raving as Jabba punctuated their precise singer and DJ routine with his energetic exhortations. Next up was Beenie Man doing “Who Am I” and “Rum and Red Bull” and then Elephant Man came through in a zebra-print jacket to shut the whole show down in true Energy God style and fashion. As Elephant Man put it: “Feel good fi know seh BET Awards a request Elephant Man U have a million artistes dem can call but dem call Ele.” Witness history in the making. Video After The Jump… (more…)

  • HEAR THIS: Steely & Clevie Top 12

    From Studio One To Studio 2000, Dancehall’s Dynamic Duo Did It All


    Steely’s untimely death this week leaves an enormous void that can only be filled by more tunes. At times like these all we can do is say a prayer for the man’s family and loved ones, and honor his legacy by returning again and again to the music he loved so deeply. (more…)

  • Better Days: Reasoning With Steely & Clevie

    Remembering Wycliffe “Steely” Johnson Aug. 18, 1962 – Sep. 1, 2009

    Two The Hard Way: Steely & Clevie did it real big during dancehall’s digital era.

    Even after reading the sobering words of his musical sparring partner Cleveland “Clevie” Browne in this Sunday’s Jamaica Observer, the untimely death of ace Roots Radics keyboardist and pioneering dancehall producer Wycliffe “Steely” Johnson still comes as a terrible shock. The 47-year-old musician, composer, and groovemaster has played such a vital role on so many classic reggae recordings—from Gregory Isaacs’ immortal “Night Nurse” to the ubiqitous Punany riddim to “Sorry” (by “the other Foxy Brown”) to dancehall blasters like Tiger’s “When” and Shabba Ranks’s “Ting a Ling” even soulful cuts like Beres Hammond’s “Double Trouble” and the hit remake of Dawn Penn’s “No No No”—that it’s hard to imagine Jamaican music without him. [UPDATE: V.P.’s new Reggae Anthology pays tribute to Steelie & Clevie] (more…)