Three Sufferer's Tales
Babylon - Sugar Minott Babylon is an early dancehall hit recorded by Sugar in his early days at Channel One. Babylon never made it onto any of his studio albums (at least not in the USA). It's a killer cut ina dance hall stylee. The backing band sounds a lot like the Roots Radics and I don't know who produced it because there were no log sheets on the session.
Peeni Walli - Eek A Mouse This 1984 single is a comical suffer's tale written by Eek about his crash with a motorcycle when he was riding his bike one day. Peeni walli is Jamaican patios for a firefly. The lyrics are quite imaginative:
Quote:
Riding on my bicycle
Got knocked down by a motorcycle
In front of a motor vehicle
Luckily, I was Jah Jah disciple
I lay on the ground I was so injured
So unconscious, did not know what to do :/
Yeah, man!
When the bike really hit me
I see stars and peeni walli
Beddameng! - pain all over me
Me tink me get shocked by electricity
Beddameng!
I lay on the ground I was so injured
So unconscious, did not know what to do :/
Yeah, man!
Me say at the public hospital
Crowd gather around like it was a funeral, 'ey!
Some say it accidental
or the lang youth ha look 'pon a fat gal
|
G.P. - Gregory Isaacs G.P. is shorthand for General Penitentiary, Jamaica's principal maximum security prison, located in downtown Kingston near the harbor. Gregory was no stranger to G.P., having done time for both herbs smuggling and possession of illegal firearms. In fact Gregory's career was seriously affected by his periodical stints in G.P. His first stint came at just as his music was breaking through in the USA and the UK but he was incarcerated and couldn't tour.
After that Gregory spent a couple years unable to tour outside of Jamaica because of his undesirable status with both US and UK immigration. When I finally saw him live in the USA, it was 1985 and US Department of Immigration would only allow him a three day tourist visa which precluded any serious touring outside of gigs in Boston, New York and a few other Eastern Seaboard cities of the USA. It was sad because when Gregory could finally tour without any kind of travel constraints, his fleeting moment as a cultural zeitgeist of reggae music had passed.