Version 2 Version: Yellowman dub'n'rap mix

I’m currently working on a Yellowman mix for my fiancée.  She’s a big hip-hop fan and thus, in my estimation, a nascent dancehall fan.  We work together 10 hours a week and it’s pretty much all I like to listen to when pushing papers, so she’s starting to like it whether she wants to or not.  Of course, I don’t have much of a say in things until the Leonard Lopate show is over at 2:00.

Yellowman is pretty lovable; he’s one of the crudest, rudest, slackest vocalists of the 1980s, and despite releasing at least a dozen albums in 1982 alone, most of them are pretty good.  However, I did start to think that 80 minutes of pure and unadulterated Yellowman might get tiresome for the unconvinced listener.  So I began toying with the idea of breaking the mix up with other material that samples King Yellow, either dub mixes or hip-hop singles, or tracks that feature him as a guest.  I was much aided in my search by www.whosampled.com, which, while not exhaustive, lists 7 borrowings for Zungguzungguguzungguzeng alone.  I was happy to find Junior MAFIA’s rather humorous “Player’s Anthem” (video below), where Biggie's refrain paraphrases Yellow's vocalese melody, as well as K7’s Zunga Zeng.  Nice & Smooth samples Yellow’s tune not once but twice, simply rapping over the same vocal loop from “Zung” on both Nice & Smooth and Dope on a Rope.  (The last three tunes can be heard mixed together on a great wayneandwax post.)

More songs below the jump!...

One could easily explain this fascination by the fact that “Zungguzungguguzungguzeng” is really goddamn catchy.  But I think it goes deeper; Yellowman’s urban, rudeboy image must have really struck a note with the purveyors of the early rap scene, particularly with the members of NWA, whose “Nobody Move Nobody Gets Hurt” is a direct reference to Yellow’s 1984 album of the same name.  So it’s unsurprising to find Yellowman appearing on several rap singles throughout his career; a seminal track is Run D.M.C.’s Roots, Rap, Reggae from 1985’s King of Rock.  I’ve also become quite fond of fellow Caribbean Wyclef’s Perfect Gentleman Remix, which finds the Jamaican DJ toasting alongside Xzibit to great effect.  When I listen to most dancehall, the generic nature of the riddims makes a lot of the songs blend together in my mind into one supersong.  So having Yellow sing a medley of his biggest hits, including “Yellowman Getting Married”, “Mister Chin”, and “Operation Radication”, in the space of 60 seconds is kind of like the ultimate distillation of his art.

 
What does that leave?  The classic dub mix.  Ironically, I couldn’t find very many classic versions of Yellowman’s music.  The most obvious sources were Mad Professor’s A Feast of Yellow Dub (1990) and Scientists’ Dub For Daze, Vol. 2 (1997), which both plunder the Yellowman Rides Again (1988) LP—presumably because all three albums appeared on the Ras label.  Here I’ve presented one chain among the many to be found: Yellowman’s AIDS single and its two accompanying versions.  It’s an odd choice and one of Yellow’s more conscious singles, with the chorus: “Mind you catch AIDS, mind you catch AIDS, mind you catch AIDS, you will shorten your days.”  What I find particularly amusing is the fact that on the previous year’s The Negril Chill (a live 1987 show with Charlie Chaplin) you can hear Yellowman chanting over one of his slackest tunes (a ditty called “Nuff Punany”) the contradictory claim: “And the AIDS disease is no, nah gon’ kill me / And the gonorrhea no, nah gon’ kill me / And the syphilis no, nah gon’ kill me / And the herpes no, nah gon’ kill me / Get the punany, get it a ready…”  In any case, the AIDS Dub is one of Scientist’s most reductionist and skeletal mixes, while Mad Professor’s A Dose of Diseases is precisely the opposite, distorting all the ingredients past recognition and adding extremely high-pitched rhythmic effects on top of the original.

So… should I lead with “Wreck a Pum Pum” or “Bedroom Mazurka”?  Or perhaps those songs should come in the middle, like a crescendo of lewdness…

Comments

[Nat]

That first Yellowman LP is on my turntable constantly!

This concert footage of him with Volcano is incredible:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKWTGPNuLlI

[Joe]

the Zungguzungguguzungguzeng was also definitely quoted in a toy commercial in the 90's that is now stuck in my head. But not stuck enough that I can remember the actual words. Just a wordless children's chorus chanting along.

This is gonna bug me for weeks.

[Paul Turkk]

Wha! No mention Of Rambo, Rambo, in an out the studio!?

[icanhazz]

Don't be gay. Don't make mixtapes for people you like, especially with a song like AIDS.

[s.w.]

"Don't be gay"? Are you from the island yourself? I understand that homosexuality is still illegal in Jamaica. :(

[roc]

Gay is okay.

[Don (trip dub)]

I worked on the CBS 12" remix of 'I'm getting Married in the morn' b/w 'Young Man'. I have a digi 8 of Yellow at Reggae Carifest 2 years ago. Need to txfr and edit down for posting on youtube. Need help. Thx