Brass Trax

When the mercury is pushing the upper 90s, it’s time to nice up the dance, like they do in Jamaica. There’s nothing that sounds better in a sweaty summertime club than the slack rhythms of dancehall reggae.

You know about versioning. A dancehall DJ (that’s the vocalist) sings or chats over pre-existing tracks, known as “rhythms” or “riddims,” which get recycled over and over again. The hottest rhythms have been versioned more times than anybody can count and have gone through as many revisions as a Faulkner novel.

Dancehall selectors love to weave together skeins of tunes on the same rhythm; nothing mixes better with a drum track, after all, than the very same drum track. Today, Brass Trax begins a crash course
presenting the biggest hits on classic reggae rhythms, so that next time you hit the dancehall, you can confidently tell the selector to “pull up.” Now, meet the “Answer.”

Answer Rhythm - The Original

The “Answer” rhythm was not named after the first recording of the backing track, but after its most influential early dancehall version. In that sense, it has two originals. The first, Slim Smith’s “Never Let Go,” was a slamming, soulful rocksteady jam, with the vocal harmonies and jaunty horns that characterized Studio One’s recordings in 1967. The backing band was the Soul Vendors, the Studio One house band at the time, and, although the release credits only producer Coxsone Dodd, it’s a good bet that organist Jackie Mittoo co-wrote the tune.

“Never Let Go” by Slim Smith

But the rhythm got its name from Lone Ranger’s blockbuster version “The Answer,” released to feverish dancehalls in 1977. It’s easy to hear why Lone Ranger’s track became the more memorable. The Soul Vendors backing track is played faster. Slim Smith offers a mannered song about enduring love in three part harmony; Lone Ranger chats in patois about his landlord. He rhymes on beat, like a rapper, and
brings a swagger—and a lexicon of esoteric syllables—that brought Jamaican vocal style into the dancehall era. Play “The Answer” to the right crowd today, and you will still blow up the spot.

“The Answer” by Lone Ranger

The Responses.

After Lone Ranger’s take set the standard, versioning the “Answer” rhythm became a matter of course. Ranking Joe, Early B, Peter Metro, Half Pint, and Jah Thomas each had a go at the track between 1978 and 1983, and each produced a minor masterpiece. Peter Metro’s “Calypso, Calypso,” with its impromptu Spanish lesson, remains a favorite of Brass Trax, and Early B’s “History of Jamaica” is a lyrical indictment of the crimes of colonialism. But none of those tunes gets stuck in your head the way Sister Nancy’s “Transport Connection” does.

“History of Jamaica” by Early B
“Calypso, Calypso” by Peter Metro
“Babylon Releases the Chain” by Half Pint
“Answer the Telephone” by Jah Thomas

“Transport Connection” was recorded over producer Winston Riley’s version of “Answer,” which drops the piercing horns from the Studio One original. But Sister Nancy manages to evoke them anyway, chatting out a litany of modes of transportation, which pile on top of each other like a transcontinental traffic jam. From the Skylark she drives in New York to the cycle, motorbike, donkey cart, and motor van you can find in Jamaica, Sister Nancy manages to wring biography out of the brute fact that you have to get places somehow, “whether you’re a driver or a walk foot man.”

“Transport Connection” by Sister Nancy

The Revisions.

Like many classic rhythms, “Answer” got a facelift in the age of digital dancehall. Bobby Konders’s NYC sound system Massive B rolled out a new version of the rhythm in the early 90s that breaks the tune down to its chassis. It’s a rumbling rerecording that shares little with the sunshiney chorus of Slim Smith’s original; it’s as grimy as a New York underpass. If you hear Konders’s “Answer” in the dancehall, there’s a good chance that you will also hear the knotty throat of Burro Banton, who voiced a number of tunes on the rhythm. “Settle Yourself,” his banger from 2001, even references “Transport Connection” by mentioning the same train
(”Engine, engine number nine”).

“Settle Yourself” by Burro Banton

London’s Blacker Dread sound system cut a contemporary version of “Answer” that has all the grit of the Massive B track but with an added bounce in the back end and a couple of choice vocal samples. (”Yo, yo.”) Beenie Man recorded his massive tune “Too Bad Mind” on this rhythm, and it hasn’t left the dancehall since 2004. Likewise, the Blacker Dread remix that pasted Eek-a-Mouse’s vocals from “Wa Do Dem” (originally on the “Diseases” rhythm) over “Answer” has become a staple of any good selector’s set.

“Too Bad Mind” by Beenie Man

More recently, Stephen Marley released a curious, a cappella take on the rhythm. “The Traffic Jam,” about a roadside drug bust, stormed Jamaica’s charts in 2006. It’s a track that pulls together elements from throughout the rhythm’s history: the foundation from “Never Let Go,” the weird vocalizations from Lone Ranger, Sister Nancy’s traffic jam, and the gritty bassline from the Massive B and Blacker Dread versions. And we didn’t even mention the beatboxing.

“The Traffic Jam” by Stephen Marley

Stay tuned for a weekly installment of Brass Trax: funk, jazz and soul from the ground up.