Sunday, December 4, 2011

... summer street seen ...

... in my world Jamaican Music is a twentyfourseven, threesixtyfive prerequisite, without which life just wouldn't feel right, but sometimes it is seen as mere summertime sound with diminishing relevance as the cooler months set in ... while I strongly reject that attitude in principle, I tend to shelve my objections in July and August when, everywhere I turn, there's a bumpin' bassline or bubblin' beat to keep the vibes level ...

... at the base of the world-famous CN Tower in downtown Toronto, while testing the touchscreen camera app on a new Android Tablet, my attention was drawn to a familiar image on a vending machine ... the resultant snapshot benefitted, quite unintentionally (pinky swear), from a pair of strolling sightseers in my pre-set frame, recalling an early 90's dancehall lick that rocked clubs and looped out of every audio-cassette deck ...

  chorus:
" ... a jus' de Coca-Cola bottle shape a it a run di place,
bruck-out bruck-out gyal, a u have de shape, 
a just de Coca-Cola bottle shape, a it a run di place, 
skin-out skin-out gyal, a u have de shape ..."













   and verse:
"... inna de place, uptown girl have de shape, 
inna de place, downtown girl have de shape, 
inna de place, a London girl have de shape,
inna de place, New York girl have de shape, 
inna de place, Canadian girl have de shape,
a dem have di shape and a give man headache,
a dem have di shape mek man body shake ..."

... you get the idea ... within the genre there is always compulsion to big-up the female form, frequently in illustrative or graphic fashion ... this familiar theme, with attendant effect on the equilibrium of the enraptured beholder, is an eternal spring ...

... here on record (spot the misspellings inspired by yardspeak, a fun-for-all parlour game with reggae covers and labels), figure and bodyline are linked to curvy coke-bottle design and presented over a tuff Bogle riddim, with hooks from the quirky-smirky vocal of self-deprecatingly named DJ, Simpleton ...













... Christopher "Simpleton" Harrison (1971-2004), late of  St. Andrew, Jamaica, shot to fame in '91/'92 with this hit ... he reportedly suffered from high blood pressure and died of a heart attack at just 33 years old after releasing three albums ...

... I remember him, and his catchy phrasing, whenever I spy Scarlett Johanssen ... or a retro pop-vending machine ...

1 comment :

  1. Hmmm. Wlll ask Husband if he thinks I have a Coca-Cola bottle shape, since I lost weight over the summer. :-)

    ReplyDelete

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