Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.
Vybz Kartel is apparently not letting the whole feud thing get him down. Hot on the heels of the Self Defense and Silent River riddims—where he took aim at his on-again nemesis Mavado with some of the most inflammatory war tunes recorded in Jamaica since their last clash ended in a near-state of emergency last March—he is dropping this uptempo club banger on the Crop Over riddim. Or more accurately, producer Karim “Stainless” Thompson is dropping it, although it is pretty clearly a vehicle for Vybz and his Portmore Empire ambitions for world domination—If you don’t recognize any of the names on the riddim; Sean Storm, Lisa Hype, Ice Cold et all are all relative unknowns from around Kartel’s old stomping grounds in Portmore who he has taken under his wing.
Crop Over Riddim blend:
Vybz Kartel, “Tek it (Wine Wine)”
Lisa Hype, “Gimme Buddy”
Ice Cold, “Boom”
Double K, “Get Up (Wanna Ride)”
Sean Storm, “Dilly Dolly”
Crop Over Version
It’s maybe not surprising that he has scared up some new playmates considering that his old sparring partners are apparently too busy scheming to blow up his Honda (NOT A JOKE THING), but considering all the dramaticism, it does seem sort of weird that he is launching his big comeback with a Hi-NRG/Latin freestyle beat that sounds more like “Leila K” than “Rise Di K.”
Just goes to show that even battle-chat specialists like Kartel have taken note of all the clubby fakehall hybrids featuring non-Jamaican vocalists in the Calabria/Kat DeLuna vein that are outselling their own shit. If this is the future sound of Portmore, then I, for one, am not mad. If it had dropped in time for summer it could have even been a hit!
