Songs where a black singer from the USA affects a Jamaican accent, even fleetingly.

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I mean, aside from the new R. Kelly. It's a vogue I think. And how far does it date back--I seem to recall ersatz calypso in R&B in the '50s, and then there's Chuck Berry's "Havana Moon" but that's not quite the same thing.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 11 April 2003 14:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh haha "Louie, Louie" of course!

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 11 April 2003 14:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Miss Cleo, "Call Me Now"

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 11 April 2003 14:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I kind of want everyone to talk about the influence of Jamaican pop on American R&B since the reverse has become a cliché.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 11 April 2003 14:54 (twenty-two years ago)

KRS-One to thread?

― hstencil, Friday, 11 April 2003 14:56 (twenty-two years ago)

you got a couple hours?

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 11 April 2003 15:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Sure, Jess. (Leans back in chair, lights up a cigarette.)

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 11 April 2003 15:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Shaggy

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 11 April 2003 15:02 (twenty-two years ago)

heh, i just meant that cataloging every instance of a fleeting jamaican accent in hiphop is gonna be a huge undertaking. unless you do mean Singer singer.

interestingly, AMG has joe jackson and primal scream under its "lovers rock" section

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 11 April 2003 15:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Phife from A Tribe Called Quest does this a lot. Especially on Midnight Marauders.

― Brandon Gentry (Brandon Gentry), Friday, 11 April 2003 15:14 (twenty-two years ago)

So is R. Kelly's little Jamaican moment in "Ignition" a kind of "keepin' it real" gesture not just at Jamaica but hip-hop as well?

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 11 April 2003 15:15 (twenty-two years ago)

i think so. we were driving the other day - which is not a common occurance - and so i turned on the local hip-hop station (which you have to understand is one of the "whitest" "urban" stations I've ever heard - this is an area with four country stations, one local just to the olympia area - the DJs sound like catskills comedians crossed with the "morning zoo crew"...a far cry from power99 or hot97 or whatever they have chicago) which was playing a track (i assume it was sean paul, i didn't catch it) which was straight up hardcore danchall for all intents and purposes, something which would have been unthinkable even five years ago (when dancehall was still relegated to midnight on sundays). the line between jamaica and hip-hop is so pourous right now as to not even really exist; yes it IS probably fashion and this too will pass, but the "damage" is done in a way. r. kelly is probably more trying to keep it real with his hip-hop constituents than jamaica.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 11 April 2003 15:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Bushwick Bill in Geto Boys "Fuck 'Em"

― dave q, Friday, 11 April 2003 15:23 (twenty-two years ago)

agree w/jess: we should really just stick to singers and disregard hip hop

― oops (Oops), Friday, 11 April 2003 15:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I was gonna say RB Greaves ("Take A Letter Maria"), but it turns out he was born in British Guyana. Johnny Nash ("Stir It Up," "Hold Me Tight", "I Can See Clearly Now") and Lionel Richie ("All Night Long") and maybe Eldra Debarge ("Rhythm of the Night") are pretty obvious, though maybe some of those are a different kind of fake Caribbean accents, who knows? The Marvellettes ("de-livah de-lettah da soonah da bettah..")? Harry Belafonte, obviously. Maybe Sam Cooke (can't remember which songs off hand, though? And Rick James and Funkadelic etc. had occasional reggae songs. Lotsa funk bands did....And jeez, what about Stevie Wonder in "Boogie On Reggae Woman" and "Master Blaster Jammin'"? I mean, this is hardly a new development at all.

― chuck, Friday, 11 April 2003 15:38 (twenty-two years ago)

The version of "Cortez the Killer" on "Live Rust", Neil Young briefly affects a ludicrous and totally irrelevant Jamaican accent, then thinks better of it - I suppose he couldn't do an Inca accent, he can't do a Jamaican one either.

― Dadaismus, Friday, 11 April 2003 15:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Oops, I've noticed the title of this thread - Neil Young is not Black of course otherwise some clever spark somewhere would have used the headline "Young: Gifted and Black" before now.

― Dadaismus, Friday, 11 April 2003 15:44 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread belongs to Wyclef Jean

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 11 April 2003 16:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Wyclef spent his childhood in the Carribean (Haiti)

― oops (Oops), Friday, 11 April 2003 16:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh haha "Louie, Louie" of course!

The Kingsmen weren't black.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 11 April 2003 16:31 (twenty-two years ago)

But Richard Berry was.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 11 April 2003 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Also Harry Belafonte spent much of his childhood in Jamaica, I believe, although it is true that he speaks without an accent.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 11 April 2003 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

i think method man sounds fairly jamaican sometimes,especially on the w

― robin (robin), Friday, 11 April 2003 16:40 (twenty-two years ago)

interestingly, AMG has joe jackson and primal scream under its "lovers rock" section

This and other remixes brought to you by DJ Hacker.

― Andy K (Andy K), Friday, 11 April 2003 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Tim Dog briefly lapses into Jamaican patois in "I Get Wrecked."

― mike a (mike a), Friday, 11 April 2003 19:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Also Heavy D in "Dem No Worry We."

― mike a (mike a), Friday, 11 April 2003 19:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Wyclef was born in Haiti.

Why does it have to be black singers? Bradley Nowell from Sublime hella did this. So does the rapper Ras from Long Beach Dub Allstars that recorded on some Sublime songs, but Bradley did it ALL THE FUCKIN TIME.

Also in the non-black guys who do this category: Nick Hexum from 311

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 11 April 2003 19:23 (twenty-two years ago)

And the guy from Big Mountain...oh wait.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 11 April 2003 19:48 (twenty-two years ago)

if i don't mention busta on the "gimme the light" remix, then someone else will.

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Friday, 11 April 2003 19:49 (twenty-two years ago)

White guys from canada would be more challenging

― SplendidMullet (iamamonkey), Friday, 11 April 2003 20:43 (twenty-two years ago)

who sing with a jamaican accent that is

― SplendidMullet (iamamonkey), Friday, 11 April 2003 20:44 (twenty-two years ago)

>>White guys from canada would be more challenging
--who sing with a jamaican accent that is<<

Snow!!!!

― chuck, Friday, 11 April 2003 20:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I think what I was getting at is that there is a longstanding relationship between black communities in American cities and Caribbean nations. Because of the many Jamaicans, Haitians, etc. living in those cities. But also reggae lies at the root of hip hop, and R&B lies at the root of both hip hop and reggae, there doesn't seem to be as pronounced (or discussed) an influence of reggae on R&B. The R. Kelly moment got me to thinking that such an influence might not be filtered through hip-hop. Of course this all begs the question of whether hip-hop and R&B can be identified as discrete phenomena at this point in time.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 11 April 2003 20:54 (twenty-two years ago)

might not = might

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 11 April 2003 20:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Mos Def can't seem to resist it.

― Adrian Langston (Adrian Langston), Friday, 11 April 2003 21:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Clarence Babcock on "King of the Zulus," Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five. (Heck, I don't know, maybe Clarence actually was Jamaican.)

― Methuselah (Methuselah), Saturday, 12 April 2003 02:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Guru does it a bit on one of the tracks on Hard to Earn.

― jadrenos, Saturday, 12 April 2003 14:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Methuselah nailed it. That's from 1926, ya muthers.

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Saturday, 12 April 2003 18:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Ron Isley did a whole album Jamaican stylee as Mr. Biggs

― oops (Oops), Monday, 14 April 2003 14:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Snoop oat the end of Dre's "The Day the Niggaz Took Over"

― Mike Ouderkirk (Mike Ouderkirk), Monday, 14 April 2003 23:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Foxy Brown ownz this thread.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 00:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I still don't understand why people are acting like rappers invented this stuff. (My long post toward the beginning of the thread has been completely ignored!) Anyway, a couple more ancient-history ones: Chubby Checker, "Limbo Rock"; Jimmy Soul "If You Wanna Be Happy" (number one in the U.S. for two weeks, 1963.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 15 April 2003 00:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Chuck, my second post mentioned "Louie, Louie" which was recorded in 1956!

I actually was more interested in the historical relationship as evidenced in R&B since Jamaican influence on hip-hop is a given.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 00:11 (twenty-two years ago)

That's what I thought; the hip-hop thing is so fucking obvious (dating back to obscure early '80s 12-inches I could look up at home if it was really necessary, through assorted Run DMC and Fat Boys and Spoonie Gee tracks, and on and on) that it's almost boring to even talk about at this point. You were asking for the ROOTS, I thought. So it's kinda frustrating that nobody picked up on my laundry list.

― chuck, Tuesday, 15 April 2003 00:23 (twenty-two years ago)

But Chuck we are paying attention, really.

― Mary (Mary), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 01:45 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

Alot of the artits being mentioned actually ARE of Jamaican or Caribbean descent(Method Man-Jam, KRS-ONE, & Heavy D-Jamaica, Foxy Brown-Trinidad & Tobago, Wyclrf Jean-Haiti).

― Mbantu Wazungu, Wednesday, 18 August 2004 05:04 (twenty years ago)

"BUFFALO STANCE", PEOPLE.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 18 August 2004 06:15 (twenty years ago)

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