Official Dancehall Reggae: Reggae Sting ft Papa San, Ninjaman, Supercat, Tiger, Admiral Bailey, Beres Hammond, Junior Reid, Freddie McGregor 1991
Reggae/gospel artist Papa San began as a dancehall artist, releasing albums like 1990's Style & Fashion. Hip-hop and gospel elements found their way into his work on Pray Fi Dem and his guest appearance on the Reverend Jackie McCullogh's This Is For You Lord project. Papa San combined all of these styles on his 1999 album Victory.
A major figure in the positive-consciousness dancehall movement, Jamaican DJ/toaster Super Cat was born William Maragh in a ghetto section of Kingston known as Cockburn Pen or Seivright Gardens (the same area that produced DJ stars like U-Roy and Prince Jazzbo). Interested in music from a very young age, Maragh was touring Jamaica with various sound system organizations by the time he was a teenager. His first DJ name, Cat-a-Rock, was eventually switched to Super Cat due to the former's resemblance to the word "cataract"; he also earned a secondary nickname, the Wild Apache. Super Cat made his recording debut in 1981 with the single "Mr. Walker," recorded for the Techniques label and produced by Winston Riley. A succession of singles for various labels followed, as did his debut album Si Boops Deh, which appeared on Techniques in 1985. Settling for a short time on the Skengdon label, Super Cat recorded another album, Boops, but soon grew dissatisfied enough with the business aspect of recording to start his own label, Wild Apache Productions. The self-produced album Sweets for My Sweet followed in 1988, as did a number of singles produced for other artists on the Wild Apache imprint; Super Cat also teamed up with Nicodemus and Junior Demus for the first triple-team DJ album in dancehall history, Cabin Stabbin'.
One of the most popular dancehall DJs of the late '80s and early '90s, Ninjaman was also perhaps the most controversial, thanks to his often violent, progun lyrics. His bad-man image overshadowed the fact that he was a hugely talented freestyle lyricist, and the owner of a theatrical, stuttering delivery that made him a highly distinctive toaster. What was more, he did delve into social commentary at times, protesting war and the harsh realities of ghetto life rather than glamorizing their attendant violence. By the late '90s, Ninjaman was making far more headlines due to his turbulent personal life than his music, but even if his recording activities had tailed off, he remained a popular -- and still polarizing -- concert act.
Ninjaman was born Desmond John Ballentine on January 20, 1966, in Annotto Bay, in the Jamaican province of St. Mary. His family moved to Kingston when he was 11, and he started DJing a year later under the name Double Ugly. Initially performing for the Black Culture sound system, he moved over to the Kilimanjaro organization in the early '80s, and there got the chance to learn from Super Cat and Early B. He changed his name to Uglyman, then Ninjaman when another artist of the same name came forward.
Freddie McGregor is one of reggae's most durable and soulful singers, with an incredibly steady career that started all the way back in the '60s, when he was just seven years old. Since then, he's spanned nearly every stylistic shift in Jamaican music, from ska and rocksteady to Rastafarian roots reggae to lovers rock (his particular specialty) to dabblings in dancehall, ragga, and dub. Not just a singer, he wrote some of his own material, and grew into an accomplished producer as well. McGregor's heyday was the early '80s, when he released several high-quality albums and reached the peak of his popularity in Jamaica and England. However, he remained a strong presence on the reggae scene well into the new millennium.
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