Could tropical storm Wilma stop Jimmy Cliff, Elephant Man, and Bounty Killer? Not a chance.
A line-up of reggae and dancehall legends faced down Tropical Storm Wilma's torrential rains on October 16 to help launch MTV Networks' new Tempo channel. Jimmy Cliff, Bounty Killer, Elephant Man and Toots & the Maytals were among the stalwarts who delighted a soaked crowd on Jamaica's James Bond Beach. The night was capped off by a visit from American MC, The Game.
In keeping with Tempo's aim to celebrate Caribbean music and culture, the bill reflected the diverse sounds of Jamaica. While the reggae legends and their bands served up miniature sets of their greatest hits, the dancehall DJs put up-to-the-minute riddims under singles old and new.
In the reggae camp were Toots & the Maytals - whose 1968 song "Do the Reggay" gave the genre its name - and Jimmy Cliff, whose iconic performance in 1972's The Harder They Come helped introduce the music to the world. Dressed in a silver and black vest, Toots Hibbert's used his signature gruff voice to recall his beloved R&B influences; it gave a deeper sense of history to classics like "Pressure Drop" and "Sweet and Dandy."
Jimmy Cliff delighted the crowd by breaking into the latest island dance craze, the Willie Bounce. The energetic 57-year-old dodged past glories, avoiding hits from The Harder They Come soundtrack altogether. Instead, he snuck a snatch of No Doubt's "Hey Baby" into Kool & the Gang's "Let's Go Dancing" and treated his soggy fans to "I Can See Clearly Now (The Rain Has Gone)."
Dancehall's finest artists electrified the stage with macho posturing and a dizzying array of beats flying from the turntables. A groove would rarely last a minute before the deejays charged ahead into another hit. Popular riddims like Move, Drop Leaf and My Swing also reappeared in several sets; at moments if felt like you'd been dropped into the world's most frantic mix-tape.
The concert's heavyweight champ was Bounty Killer, who led the crowd in a roar-along to "It's Okay," and issued the obligatory taunt to his rival, Beenie Man. Killer also
dragged out Jamaica's other dancehall titan, Buju Banton, for a medley that included Buju's current hit "Motorbike." Some Jamaican audience members fire handguns in the air when they're taken with a certain tune; here, they applauded Buju's work by chanting back "buck buck," imitating the sound of appreciative gunshots.
This exclamation may have been hard to follow, but Elephant Man - his hair dyed red and orange - took the crowd to the next level. The relentless rapper climbed on top of a speaker stack for "Callin' Out," commanded the 1500-strong audience to wave their cell phones in the air, and finished with an a cappella version of "We Are the World."
Although The Game didn't emerge on stage until well after two in the morning, he got a hysterical welcome and quickly bonded with the crowd. "Put them umbrellas down, I'm getting wet, too," he said, spending the rest of the wee hours perched on the lip of the stage, taking requests and explaining why he calls his nemesis 50 Cent's crew "G U-Not."
The bare-chested MC showed off the fruit of an afternoon spent in Elephant Man's company, barking "Dreams" over the dub beat of Damien Marley's "Welcome to Jamrock." Earlier, deejay Wayne Marshall paid his own respects to hip-hop with a hyped rendition of Kanye West's "Gold Digger."
The rest of the bill presented Jamaican music in all its complexity. The choreography of dancehall trio Voice Mail would have impressed 'N Sync. Deejay Vybz Kartel spat rhymes out over Harold Faltermeyer's "Axel F" theme. And the ladies went as wild when they were invited to "wine" against Leftside & Esco's bamboo sticks as they did for the lovers rock of Morgan Heritage's "Your Best Friend."
"If we find out one thing tonight," Wayne Marshall had joked earlier, "we'll find out who loves water." But as the Caribbean rapidly reclaimed the sands of James Bond Beach, Tempo's launch and its hardy celebrants also showed that Jamaica's current music is as exciting as that of any other country in the world.
Tempo will begin airing in the Caribbean on November 21 and in the U.S. in 2006.
