sean paul's "get busy"

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Is this the biggest crossover dancehall hit ever in North America?

It was #1 on Billboard singles chart last week.

Maybe Shaggy beat him to it, actually...

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 15 May 2003 16:21 (twenty-two years ago)

i demand more videos featuring the dance moves from this and gimme the light.

― brian badword (badwords), Thursday, 15 May 2003 16:32 (twenty-two years ago)

My scuzzbucket radio show follows a Caribbean show, and they always sign of with a Sean Paul number, and I gotta admit, that shit is hot!

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 15 May 2003 16:39 (twenty-two years ago)

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/pic200_web/drp000/p098/p09819rrg70.jpg

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 15 May 2003 16:42 (twenty-two years ago)

did snow have as big a hit as "get busy"?

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 15 May 2003 16:54 (twenty-two years ago)

"Informer" was fucking huge. And not just in Canada.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Snow beat up a friend of mine in high school.

― slutsky (slutsky), Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I've heard that "Informer" was actually quite a big hit in Jamaica & that he is well-liked and respected there.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, that's what he says.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:09 (twenty-two years ago)

ha! no seriously i think it's true

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually, yeah, I have it from good sources that it's true. He's not like worshipped or anything, but he draws a my-t crowd.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I kinda like "Get Busy," though it's not usually my thing. I haven't the faintest idea of what he's singing/toasting/whatevering about (although I think he at one point refers to getting a "woody"), but it's got an interesting, cool sound.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I like it a lot myself.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:22 (twenty-two years ago)

the most amazing part about sean paul hitting number 1 is that there's another song in the u.s. top 40 using the same rhythm ("diwali", i think.)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:47 (twenty-two years ago)

which is the real measure of dancehall-mania in america, i suppose. (somehow i can't count shaggy.)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:48 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, "no letting go" by wayne wonder also uses the diwali rhythm -- it's No. 16 this week.

― scott pl. (scott pl.), Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:55 (twenty-two years ago)

You cannot go anywhere in Chicago without hearing this blasting from cars. The production doesn't have all that much to do with contemporary dancehall but the vocal definitely does, down to the weird descending melody on the chorus (are they using a harmonizer there?).

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Not sure how reliable this is, but according to Allmusic.com, the following songs all went number one on the Billboard Hot 100: Snow "Informer," Ini Kamoze "Here Comes the Hotstepper," Shaggy "It Wasn't Me," Shaggy "Angel." Mad Cobra' "Flex" went number one on the r&b chart, but only #13 pop (and I don't remember ever hearing it, actually.) Anything else I'm forgetting? Does Super Cat with Sister Ray or No Doubt count? (Or was that somebody *else* with No Doubt??)

"Informer" is the best of the above songs BY FAR. (Including Sean Paul's.) Though Shaggy's "Oh Carolina" is better than any of them.

― chuck, Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Ini Kamoze, how quickly we forget.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 15 May 2003 17:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Sugar Ray, not Sister Ray. (Though Sugar Ray, as in the turn of the '90s punk/garage band from Ohio, were pretty great.)

― chuck, Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:00 (twenty-two years ago)

SHIT! SISTER Ray were the Ohio garage band. I type too fast...

― chuck, Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:01 (twenty-two years ago)

"Informer" makes a greater effort to render the patois (i.e. incomprehensible to many Americans) than "Get Busy," probably because of Snow's anxiety about his own authenticity. The verses on "Informer" are kind of forgettable.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I forgot to type in the sentence where I say that "Informer" is nevertheless pretty great. It's fun to hear dancehall on the top 40, but Sean Paul is just average.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:03 (twenty-two years ago)

it took hearing "get busy" about a thousand times this weekend before I finally realized that it is last summer's diwali riddim, and that ten months ago elephant man's diwali track with that was my ish. this makes me happy that it's charting huge. i think sean paul's flow might be a good gateway, too- he's fairly easy to understand and uses tons of regular hip hop slang, interspersing it with more dancehall lingo. (thought: has drive time hip hop radio mixing prepared stateside listeners for riddim culture? artists seem to be approaching it this way now too; cf the hordes of people doing versions of 'in da club' and snoop dogg's take on 'magic stick')

― r. geary (rgeary), Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:04 (twenty-two years ago)

"diwali" has a shitload to do with modern dancehall production considering how popular it was/is, i would think.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:04 (twenty-two years ago)

>>>"The verses on "Informer" are kind of forgettable."<<<

Compared to WHAT?? How many number-one singles are about deep throats turning their friends into the law? I mean, "Informer" is totally paranoid--a negative theme song for the Witness Protection Program!

Me sittin' 'round cool with my dibbie dibbie girl
Police knock my door lick up my pal
Rough me up an' I can't do a thing
Pick up my line when my telephone ring
Take me to the station black up my hands
Trail me down 'cuz I'm hangin' with the Snowman
What I'm gonna do I'm backed an' I'm trapped
Slap me in the face an' took all o' my gap
They have no clues an' they wanna get warmer
But Shan won't turn informer

― chuck, Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:09 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah true but the way it's layered, it feels much thicker than contemporary dancehall. there is that synth that almost doubles the vocal line, which you're likely to hear only the chorus of a ja. dancehall hit, not t/o the whole thing. this is from memory though, i don't have the song to hear at work, so i might be confusing it with another s.p. song.

Chuck I just meant their musical qualities didn't stick in the mind. The lryics are cool.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Also Chuck all the capitalization/exclamation mark hysteria is kind of intimidating. It's like anyone makes a small point with which you disagree and suddenly it's WWIII.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I know. That's half the fun.

And actually, if I remember right, Snow's top 20 followup hit "Lonely Monday Morning" (about starting the week in a jail cell) was even better - it had a really eerie melody, too. Like a spaghetti western.

― chuck, Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Was it a sequel to "Informer"? Pop music needs more sequels.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:18 (twenty-two years ago)

"Get Busy" is easily the best Billboard #1 in years.

I'm a massive fan of reggae (from '65 - '82, but not much of a Bob Marley fan), but a lot of the ragga stuff just isn't very good. "Get Busy" and "No Letting Go", on the other hand are outstanding.

It's incredible to believe, but Jamaica has been responsible for 3 distinct genres (ska/rocksteady, reggae, and dancehall/ragga). They introduced rapping (i.e. toasting), made ludicrously dirty records (see the Trojan X-Rated Box Set), and invented remixes (i.e. dub versions) a good 10 years before anyone else. And they were big into bass about 20 years before anyone.

In the last 10 years, though, there hasn't been many good new ideas coming out of JA, so let's hope that this is the sign of a new explosion.

― blutroniq (blutroniq), Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, pretty much it *was* a sequel:

Lonely lonely lonely Monday morning
Informer dem pon 'e at the scene

Whatever that means!

(Oops, another exclamation mark. Oh well.)

― chuck, Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I wouldn't go so far to say there's gonna be a new explosion, but I agree that "Get Busy" being a hit is cuz it's fuckin' infectious as hell. First time I heard it, I had one of those, "hey what is THIS?" reactions. And the video is fantastic too.

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:24 (twenty-two years ago)

>>It's incredible to believe, but Jamaica has been responsible for 3 distinct genres (ska/rocksteady, reggae, and dancehall/ragga).<<

Wait, so why doesn't dub itself qualify as a "distinct genre"? It seems at least as distinct as the three above....

And maybe also old DJ toasting, a la Prince Buster/Dillinger/U-Roy/I-Roy/Big Youth/Dr. Alimantado/Tapper Zukie/etc. That's as different from reggae per se' as dancehall is, isn't it?

― chuck, Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm sure you all know, but Sean Paul and Wayne Wonder were the musical guests on the last SNL (the not-funny Adrien Brody). Two difft artists, same riddim. Was that some kind of dancehall education project?

friend: wait, isn't this other guy doing the same song?
me: wow, it's got that same bottom end.
friend: I can't believe it.
me: well, that's the thing. if there's a hot rhythm then everyone does it.
friend: and nobody cares?

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I separated it out into ska/rocksteady, reggae, dancehall/ragga, because that is where the major rhythmic boundaries exist.

You can make a dub of any rhythm, and you can toast/rap over any rhythm.

From AMG:

ragga:
Ragga refers to reggae in which the backing instrumentation (or the vast majority of it) is digital. The style is most commonly associated with dancehall, and while not all dancehall reggae is electronic (and therefore not ragga), there is a great deal of overlap between the two.

dancehall:
Dancehall developed in the '80s as "ragamuffin," a hybrid style featuring a DJ or "sing-jay" half-singing, half-rapping with often bawdy ("slack") themes. The musical structure is rooted in reggae though the rhythms, played by drum machines, are considerably faster.

― blutroniq (blutroniq), Thursday, 15 May 2003 18:55 (twenty-two years ago)

>>I separated it out into ska/rocksteady, reggae, dancehall/ragga, because that is where the major rhythmic boundaries exist. You can make a dub of any rhythm, and you can toast/rap over any rhythm.<<

But of course, "rhythms" are hardly the only things that distinguish musical genres, right? I mean, here in the States, a rap song with a funk rhythm would tend to be considered rap more than funk, usually.

― chuck, Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:22 (twenty-two years ago)

haha - is blutroniq the anti-Geir?

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:47 (twenty-two years ago)

The whole album is grebt. Can I register my disappointment here though with all skits EVER again, please.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Could you turn that last post into a skit, Tracer? And could there please be more skits on ILX?

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Thursday, 15 May 2003 19:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I was trying to be as general as possible, by only saying 3 genres. I'm sure you could break it down much further. That's your homework for tonight.

― blutroniq (blutroniq), Thursday, 15 May 2003 20:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Best #1 in years (not that that's saying much, but still...). FACT!!

― Evan (Evan), Thursday, 15 May 2003 21:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I doubt it's the best #1 in years; the radio's not THAT boring. Did Missy or TATU or the Dixie Chicks ever top the hot 100 chart? I forget. Is there a list of #1's since, say, the year 2000 somewhere on line? Now I'm curious....

― chuck, Thursday, 15 May 2003 22:07 (twenty-two years ago)

The Wayne Wonder song's a thousand times greater. (conservative estimate) The Sean Paul album is indeed fantastic, though. Can anyone tell me which song is sampled on "I'm Still in Love With You"? It's on the tip of my tongue, but I can't place the artist.

― Adam A. (Keiko), Thursday, 15 May 2003 22:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Best #1 since "In Da Club"!

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 16 May 2003 04:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't thing this thread has enough "BEST SONG EVER!" type statements in it.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 16 May 2003 16:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Best #1 since "In Da Club"!

There are much better comparisons. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 16 May 2003 16:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I heard "Informer" the other day and realized it wouldn't be half-bad a track if the drum sounds weren't so fuckin Dr. Rhythm WUSSY WEAK-ASS NO PRESENCE HAVING BULLSHIT.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 16 May 2003 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Can't put my finger on why, but "Get Busy," especially first few times I heard it, sounds really, really ancient--not sure if it's his voice, the production, or what. Anyway, classic.

― s woods, Friday, 16 May 2003 16:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Can I just hijack this thread for a moment to stop and marvel at the amount of fucking awesome music that's floating around at the moment?

Sorta-back-to-the-point: if ya love "Get Busy", go the gabba.net and get Elephant Man's "Fuck U Sign" - more brilliance!

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Saturday, 17 May 2003 03:07 (twenty-two years ago)

2003 is best year ever

― James Blount (James Blount), Saturday, 17 May 2003 04:35 (twenty-two years ago)

eight years pass...

shake that thing miss Kelly Kelly

― Chaka Collar, lemme rock you (DJP), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 17:44 (fourteen years ago)

shake that thing miss annabella

― tinie tempurah (lex pretend), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 18:06 (fourteen years ago)

JODY
AND REBECCA

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 23:58 (fourteen years ago)

2003 was a fucking great year for pop.

― Mr. Snrub, Wednesday, 25 January 2012 01:56 (fourteen years ago)

#eamon

http://i.imgur.com/zi7hd.gif

― dave cool, Wednesday, 25 January 2012 04:49 (fourteen years ago)

snrub otm

― lag∞n affiliated (The Reverend), Wednesday, 25 January 2012 06:18 (fourteen years ago)

ten years pass...

Lol

Omg https://t.co/P1uwRlxrob pic.twitter.com/1YattHQK0y
— Santokie (@Santokie89) December 15, 2022

― xyzzzz__, Friday, 16 December 2022 12:05 (three years ago)

amazing. i have wondered about that for years.

― stirmonster, Friday, 16 December 2022 12:37 (three years ago)

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