Sly and Robbie Rock Their 21st Century Riddim
Source: By DAVID DACKS, AOL.ca
Posted: 11/01/08 11:22PM
Filed Under: Music
During the seventies, reggae was personified by Bob Marley - rootsy, naturalistic and above all, slinky. Reggae moved with a beat that non-Jamaicans simply couldn't duplicate.
By the eighties, Jamaican music moved in step with new wave, hip hop, and all manner of electronic club sounds - angular, synthetic music all. The emergent dancehall movement fit well with the western sounds of Run DMC, Soul II Soul, and even Cabaret Voltaire. What happened?
A Sampler of Sly and Robbie's Best Collaborations |
The 'riddim twins' transformed Jamaican music in the 1980s with their "bionic reggae" sound which in incorporated electronic instruments and American soul influences. But the duo have also collaborated with reknown international artists. Get a taste of the best of Sly and Robbie with the songs in this gallery. |
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PHOTOS |
The catalyst for change was the awesome production team of drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare. Though they never had a major hit as producers or performers, their influence has loomed large across the decades and well into 2008.
Sly and Robbie's journey from reggae session kings to transcontinental masters of grooveology began in the late 70s. While on tour as the rhythm section for Peter Tosh in 1979, Dunbar heard M's one hit wonder "Pop Muzik", which was dominated by the syndrum, an early electronic percussion instrument.
"I thought that little thing (the syndrum) is wicked!" Dunbar recalls in the liner notes to the Sly and Robbie compilation Unmetered Taxi. "I came back to Jamaica and tuned it up. I couldn't program it, so I had to play it."
In Dunbar's hands, the lo-tech syndrum became much more than a sound effect. Unlike anyone else in the world, Dunbar played a bank of tuned syndrums to create electronic, post-modern versions of Rastafarian and African rhythms. His relentless precision had the robotic feel of a drum machine but retained an addictive swing. Robbie Shakespeare added basslines which were abstract and melodic, but still hit hard.
Armed with this new technology, the duo drew on their vast knowledge of soul music to re-imagine the possibilities of Jamaican sounds. "We both listened to a lot of R and B, Motown, Stax, Philadelphia International even some of the Beatles stuff," Dunbar says. "We learned that some of the songs in Jamaica were cover songs. (Jamaicans) take the song, and they strip the song down, put (different) basslines to it, and recut it. We learned the art of that."
At the turn of the 80s, the duo applied electronic instruments to their hard-edged blend of reggae and soul to create a sound called "bionic reggae". In 1980, they signed with Island Records as producers, and much of their time was spent at the Compass Point Studio in Nassau, Bahamas. Their sound dominated Compass Point; an era catalogued in one of this year's great compilations Funky Nassau: The Compass Point Story 1980-1986 (Strut Records).
The Compass Point vibe was best expressed in a trio of stylish and kinky records by Grace Jones, that destroyer of both Conan and James Bond, who is also of Jamaican descent. "When we were making those Grace Jones albums, there was Robbie, myself, and (guitarist) Mikey Chung from Jamaica, there was (keyboardist) Wally Badarou from Africa, (guitarist/songwriter) Barry Reynolds from England," Dunbar recalls.
"We integrated all of these three different cultures. There was the sound of Grace Jones."
Throughout the eighties, the "riddim twins" added their magic to records by artists as diverse as Mick Jagger, Yoko Ono, Bob Dylan, Ian Dury and Afrika Bambaataa. The duo worked with every major artist in Jamaica during that time as well, such as Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs and Black Uhuru, with whom the won the inaugural Grammy for best reggae recording in 1985. As the decade turned and sampling became the cutting edge of digital music, Sly and Robbie focused more on Jamaican productions than international work.
Back to today: In the current climate of DIY electronica that pervades the indie-rock side of dance music, Sly and Robbie's early 80s reggae production and their work with Graces Jones has regained public favour. There are clear echoes of Jones' sound in the music of Santogold, MIA and TV On The Radio. Jones herself has collaborated again with Sly and Robbie, and is due to drop her first album in 19 years, Hurricane, on November 3.
Other artists such as Spearhead and Amp Fiddler (whose album Inspiration Information was released October 14) have also recently sought out Sly and Robbie to add some of the most potent sounds of the eighties to their recent releases.
Soul singer/keyboardist Amp Fiddler's first encounter with Sly and Robbie came through Jones' music "Grace Jones" he laughs, recalling his younger days, "Me and my sister played all the lines off those records."
Fiddler grew up in Detroit, but his father came from the island of St. Vincent. His earliest musical experiences came from playing in reggae and calypso bands, before he signed on to George Clinton's Parliament Funkadelic for ten years.
Now best known for his eccentric, neo soul masterpiece Waltz of a Ghetto Fly, Fiddler felt it was finally time to hook up with his spiritual kin. "I love that I'm finally getting a chance to do this" he says. "It's been in my head for a long time. In the back of my mind I always wanted to make an album with that island influence. I can still do what I do, sing the way I sing, play the way I play and show the diversity of my thinking about how much I love island music."
Inspiration Inspiration is a rarity in soul music - it is both neo-soul and retro, thanks to the dynamic duo's knowledge of classic American rhythms. The disc is laced with subtle reggae elements and those characteristic Sly and Robbie sounds which seem simultaneously organic and electronic.
Fiddler would love to see his new mates get major props for their accomplishments: "It's frustrating to me when I speak to people like that who don't really know the history of Sly and Robbie. It's a shame that there are a lot of soul musicians and listeners and artists who just don't have a clue about them. I hope that I can change that with this record to some extent. Americans don't realize how much we've influenced island music and how much we are a part of island music."
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