... heartbreak on di gully bank ...

... if the rapturous triple-play I heard on the radio in Kingston last week is anything to go by, you are going to hear this choon all summer long, so ... nuh watch no face, yuzimi! ...

... riding high for a couple years, Mavado (a.k.a. the Gully God) from the quaintly named but periodically volatile community of Cassava Piece, has been pulling away at the top of the pack ... this is partly natural transition as leaders like Buju Banton deal with career complications and partly due to bizarre abdications like that of Vybz Kartel, whose penchant for skin-bleaching and aesthetic self-alteration alienates fans in droves and sets back his high-profile rivalry with Mavado ... at the same time Mavado, after a stream of hardcore hits, seems to be embracing a transformation from gangsta to golden-boy, a road travelled by several before him ... "Delilah" takes it to the nex' level with a melodic hook and lyrics on a universal theme ...

... there was a time not long ago when speaky-spokey announcers eschewed home-grown music in favour of foreign fare, but today, while you can still hear a wide variety of international sounds on Jamaican radio, there is little doubt that Patwa (the dominant lingua franca) with its attendant riddim, rules the airwaves ...

... Jamaican music, I suggest, is best appreciated as a mercurial continuum rather than a loose collection of (so called) "classic eras" ... some folk savor the Ska or rub-up to the Rock Steady, others revere one-drop Roots, Rock, Reggae and the yout' dem dig the Dancehall ... as such, there's a style for everyone in the musicality of this island, even if you don't regard anything beyond the Mento era or the one singer you know of is named Marley ...

JAMAICAN GLOSSARY

"choon" - tune, song

"nuh watch no face" - don't be misled by naysayers

"yuzimi" - you see me ... y'understand

"speaky-spokey" - describing attempts at proper pronunciation

Patwa" - Patois, Jamaican English