Last Thursday the EME awards—Jamaican music's answer to the Grammys—took place in Kingston, and while Vybz Kartel strolled away to the ching-ching-ching sound of gold-plated metal statues in his pocket (including one for Recording Artist of the Year), Busy Signal was somewhere else in the world being "busy wid business as usual"—or at least that's what his Twitter told us. We're not mad at Vybz getting so much award play because dude had a seriously prolific year, but no doubt Busy Signal's scarcity at home base is setting him on a path of global conquest. With a recent leak of his collaboration with M.I.A. circulating the dancehall lines (below), and now two new tracks, "Bare Gal" and "Jafrican Ting," giving us a more guttural Busy over the ting ting of cowbell and a heavy tribal thump, it appears Busy has indeed been busy sponging up sounds from "world music" and beyond. Busy Signal's visited this road before with his tracks "Up In Her Belly" and "Dah Style Deh"—two of our favorite tracks for daggering—but here he's returned to being more controlled and focused, flexing his vocals to the bounce bounce of something undeniably danceable with even more swagger then before.
Download: Busy Signal f. MIA, "Sound of Siren"
Download: Busy Signal, "Bare Gal"
Download: Busy Signal, "Jafrican Ting"
