Essential Dancehall DJ Records: 1970-1987

Following a flurry of singles and years of experience chatting on Jamaican sound systems, young DJ Ewart Beckford caught the attention of legendary singer Blondie) brought the art of the dancehall DJ to a larger audience. 

Released five years later, U-Roy’s Skin, Flesh and Bones, U-Roy chats, hollers, and yelps across an album bursting with charisma from the original breakthrough dancehall DJ.

Inspired by U-Roy’s ability to command an audience’s attention, Manley Buchanan started out as a DJ for the Tippertone Sound System, and by the early 1970s, he’d recorded a slew of singles under his Screaming Target, Big Youth’s debut album. 

Stylistically, Big Youth’s delivery differed from the typical approach of dancehall DJs at the time. While most spoken word artists recited their bouncing rhymes, Youth half-sung and half-chatted his lyrics, giving birth to the singjay style that’s still popular today. Clarke’s previous experience with Big Youth allowed him to plug into the DJ’s wiry energy. Clarke had also produced work for big-name roots reggae artists, and the instrumentals he’d developed for Gregory Isaacs, Screaming Target a year later, setting it up for a long-term, genre-defying legacy.

Lester Bullock had spent time ingrained in sound systems before laying down tracks for Joseph Hoo Kim, featured the first international hit from a dancehall DJ, “Cokane In My Brain.” 

The track is a blatant rethink of U.S. funk band the Johnny Cash) that includes the line “…cocaine runnin’ around my brain.” Still, CB 200 is Dillinger in full. He leads with an easy flow, and his exhortations and exclamations weave beautifully around Hoo Kim’s gently skanking textures.

Another triumph for producer Henry “Junjo” Lawes and the Roots Radics band, Mister Yellowman hit the shelves, most of Jamaica was familiar with Winston Foster’s Yellowman alter ego. The DJ, who based his name upon his albinism, upped the dancehall ante, creating a no-holds-barred persona that would influence the slackness of Jamaican music until the early 2000s. 

Where other dancehall DJs were easy rhymers, Yellowman was cartoonish, gruffly rapping his lyrics and demanding attention. The “Yellowman Getting Married” album track, for example, takes the coquettish song “Get Me To the Church On Time” (from the My Fair Lady musical) and turns it into a raucous comedy dancehall love song. Once the charismatic artist introduced himself, no one wanted him to leave. 

After growing up in Jamaica and London, Anthony “Hi-Yo Silver, Away! found the DJ entering his imperial phase. 

Album track “Gunshot Mek Daughter Drop” is an anti-gun stream of consciousness with a sparse, dub-like backing and the Ranger lays down his take on U-Roy, and 2007 CD reissue includes bonus 12” remixes.

As Yellowman took dancehall DJ themes in an X-rated direction, Richard Bennett used his platform to talk about social consciousness and positivity under the guise of King Stur-Gav Hi-Fi sound system in the late 1970s to champion socially-conscious reggae and Chaplin’s positive lyrical stance impressed him enough to add the DJ to the King Stur-Gav DJ team. 

Producer and label owner Presenting Charlie Chaplin. Cousins called in the Roots Radics for the sessions and, as the title suggests, the album worked as a showcase for Chaplin’s uplifting lyricism and cool, laidback delivery.

By 1987, Dreadlocks Affair. 

What makes the selection special is the quality of all involved. Both artists are exceptional examples of how commanding and entertaining a dancehall DJ could be. The musicians featured included the Aggrovators.