CRASH COURSE

Here's a nice contrast and compare exercise for anyone not really sure what the Jamaican DJ or toaster actually does. The first thing you should know is that they don't actually play records. In a nutshell, they talk, shout, boast, comment, make fanciful noises, and throw in a few of there own personal catch phrases, basically just about everything vocal but sing, and they do it over records being played at sound systems. Jamaican sound systems were basically mobile discos. In the beginning (late fifties) they played rhythm and blues, later moving to ska, rocksteady, and reggae, as Jamaican music evolved. DJing started back with Count Machuki, credited by most as the first person to toast over Jamaican records. It was one of those serendipitous improvised moments of brilliance. He was just fucking around, killing time while the sound system operator Tom the Great Sebastian took a break, just throwing out stuff over the records being played. When the crowd dug it, he went home and started working on his rhymes. "If you dig my jive, you're cool and very much alive, Everybody all round town, Machukis' the reason why I shake it down, When it comes to jive, You can't whip him with no stick."  People went nuts, so in no time others followed suit.

Which brings me to the song "The Tide Is High" by the Paragons, recorded at Duke Reid's studio in 1967. Here's the original version, along with an early U Roy version, toasting over it sans lead vocal. You can hear that a good DJ adds flavor, and U Roy was one of the best. (Just for context, the antiseptic version by Blondie is down there too. They add no flavor.) If you listen to enough U Roy, you'll start to recognize his catch phrases, which made me think of the last one below, "D.J.'s Choice" by Dennis Alcapone. It's a bit of a novelty, in that the first verse name drops about eight or so DJ's, followed by one of their catch phrases. The song actually annoys me, but I'm that way about name dropping in songs. Regardless, it's a  DJ toasting about other DJs, so it's interesting.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
The Paragons - The Tide Is High mp3 at Cubik Musik
U Roy - Tide Is High mp3 at A.Tumblr (?)
Blondie - The Tide Is High mp3 at Evil Vince
Dennis Alcapone - D.J.'s Choice (streaming) at YouTube
Visit:
DJ at Wikipedia
The Tide Is High at Wikipedia
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