Whenever Jamaican music comes up in

international spaces, there is often mention of reggae, and little or no

acknowledgement of other genres. Sean Paul makes the musical distinction

between reggae and dancehall in a recent interview with Pitchfork, and even

discloses his top dancehall tunes of all time.

Hits from the 80s account for the bulk of Paul’s list, including Sister Nancy’s Bam Bam, Wayne Smith’s Under Mi Sleng Teng and Johnny Osbourne’s Buddy Bye. Tenor Saw’s 1985 sound clash classic Ring the Alarm also made the cut.

“Tenor Saw was 19-years-old when he

started to control Jamaican music and what we started to call a dancehall

singer,” Paul said. “It was the movement just coming out of what

reggae is, different style of riddim, so it’s definitely a more reggae-oriented

rhythm but the stuff he’s doing on it was uniquely different.”

Another youngster, Koffee, makes his list with

Toast.

“Every few years in dancehall someone

comes out with a vibe, a voice… Tenor Saw back in 1981, he came in with a force

and so did this young girl… Big up to you Koffee, you just won a Grammy,

salute.”

He even identified a commonality between their

lyrical flow.

“What’s very unique about Koffee is, I’ve been one of them who likes to try and twist my rhymes up so people kinda listen two times like, ‘what?’… And she does it amazingly in this song and many songs that she does, the wordplay.”

The 90s are represented too, and Super Cat’s Ghetto Red Hot is another favourite of

Paul’s. The track was produced by Tony Kelly who also produced Paul’s Deport Dem and Like Glue.

“I call him (Super Cat) my father in the business, especially because every time I heard his songs I was always full of euphoria, his voice has something about it,” he said. “People in my school would be telling me, ‘You sound like Cat’, so I looked up to him very much in the business.”

He also cites Shabba Ranks as an inspiration,

and included Twice My Age (featuring

Krystal) in the mix.

“Shabba Ranks is one of my favourite

artistes, just for his heavy barreling voice. I always wanted to command people

with my voice the way he did. Shabba Ranks not only sang this song but many

different hits that led me to want to deejay. He would embrace things that

people at the time didn’t want to embrace about themselves. He’d come on and

say, ‘I’m ugly’… I didn’t think he was ugly but he would say it. I’ve had the

pleasure of meeting him a few times and he’s a very great character, someone

who mi just rate.”

Other tracks on his list include Dawn Penn’s No, No, No, Murder She Wrote by Chaka Demus and Pliers, and his 2002 hit, Get Busy.

“It’s been one of my biggest songs, I

open most of my shows with this song,” he said. “I was using

terminologies like ‘get busy’, I think I learned that from hip hop. At the time

I was so enthralled with the mixture of those two music, hip hop and

dancehall.”