Toppa Top 10: Top Reggae/Dancehall Songs About New York

Words by Jesse Serwer, Selections by Jesse Serwer and Martei Korley

It’s “Caribbean Week” in New York City right now and, with the weather hotting up, the days growing longer, and the clothes on women growing smaller, we’re feeling deep levels of appreciation for our hometown. With summer making its presence felt in NYC in all sorts of ways, including some high-powered Caribbean music events, we figured what better time to take stock of the best reggae/dancehall songs about the greatest city on earth?

10. Fats, “Real Badman”/Team Shadetek feat. 77Klash and Jahdan, “Brooklyn Anthem”

Vybz Kartel recorded a “Brooklyn Anthem” in 2007 but for a real Brooklyn Anthem see Fats’ “Real Badman,” with its chant of key Brooklyn yardie hotbeds: “90s, 50s, Real Badman, Crown Heights, Flatbush, Real Badman.” Our guys 77Klash and Jahdan also captured the vibe on a grime-influenced beat from producers Team Shadetek, the video from which finds them checking in at Brooklyn record shops like Ethiopian Taste and Reggae Hut, not to mention the Brownsville Houses and Ital Shak.

9. Super Cat, “Dance Inna New York”

Super Cat moved from Jamaica to New York in the late ’80s, strongly influencing his work in the following decade, particularly in regard to the incorporation of hip-hop (Biggie, for one, got some of his earliest exposure on Cat’s “Dolly My Baby” remix) Years before that, though, in 1982, he recorded this tune after receiving a favorable response to his music here.

8. Shinehead, “Jamaican In New York”

The inclusion of NYC deejay Shinehead’s answer to Sting’s “Englishman in New York” should require no explanation but if you really need one, we did a detailed “Throwback Thursdays” post on it earlier this year.

7. Buju Banton, “Driver A”

The only clue in the lyrics that this drug narrative takes place in NYC is the reference to Albermarle, a Brooklyn street known for its Victorian homes: Drivahhhhhhh, don’t stop it all/Drop this Arizona down a Albermarle. For those lacking in Brooklyn roadway knowledge, the video, shot on the Brooklyn waterfront in Williamsburg and DUMBO and the (since-closed) Flatbush landmark Super Power Records, makes it all plain. The tune itself is of course now one of the great examples of life imitiating art now that Buju is serving jail time on a Florida drug conviction. Drivahhhhhhh, just remember the damn speed limit, because if you run into feds, my friend, that is it…

6. Frankie Paul, “Alesha”

Frankie Paul’s 1983 dedication to a girl named Alesha on Lincoln Road between Bedford and Flatbush–Crown Heights– gets props for its very specific reference to a location at the epicenter of Caribbean NYC.

5. Bob Marley, “Reggae on Broadway”

This early tune from 1972 doesn’t get into the specifics of the city but it is one of Bob and the Wailers’ funkiest and most hardrockin’ tunes, warranting inclusion on that alone. (Yes, we thought of including Barrington Levy’s “Here I Come” AKA “Broader than Broadway” but that has even less of an explicit connection to NYC. It did come in at No. 1 in our Barrrington rankings, though).

4. Cocoa Tea, “Rikers Island”

We hear this song has been getting play from French DJs recently thanks to the scandal that saw French presidential hopeful/IMF chairman Dominique Strauss-Khan enter New York’s most famous prison for a brief spell last month. The inverse of Charlie Chaplin’s optimistic “Entertainer,” Cocoa Tea’s tune is a cautionary tale for Jamaicans seeking to go a  farin: The first time a youth come to New York/Dem tell a yute, you mustn’t skylark/Learn a trade or go to school/And don’t you turn yourself into fool/But now him gone a Rikers Island/Him never wan a go Rikers Island.

3. Charlie Chaplin, “Entertainer”

This deceptively simple-sounding tune paints a descriptive portrait of the city, as seen through the eyes of a first time visitor from Jamaica. A step-by-step recounting of Chaplin’s arrival for a performance here (with, he notes, fellow deejays Nicodemus, Lone Ranger and Brigadier Jerry), “Entertainer” is rich with placemarkers: “The airport where mi land named Laguardia,” “Mi seh the tallest building is World Trade Center,” “Dem have a likkle bridge run underwater/Fi pass that, you pay a dollar, quarter,” etc. But the best part is Chaplin’s contrasting of Jamaican and American terminology: We say spliff but dem say J/We say fish, dem say filet/We say train station, dem say subway/We say forward, dem say replay/We say yes, dem say Awwkayy.

2. Black Uhuru, “Chill Out”

While “Cocaine In My Brain” might seem like a controversial selection, consider that its lyrics are quoted and referenced in this one, too. The title track from one of Uhuru’s best albums meditates on the city’s fast pace from a mellow Rastaman’s point of view, with Mykal Rose calling for “Pure top ranks over Bronx, Cool runnings inna Brooklyn…A mean machine inna Queens.”

1. Dillinger, “Cocaine In My Brain”

We’re not sure if Dillinger had actually been to NYC when he taught “Jim” the proper way to spell New York was with a knife and a fork, a bottle and a cork. Word is he got the idea for the song’s savvy, hilarious dialogue from the American cokeheads who used to spot up at Jamaican resorts in the ‘70s. One of the first major international hits by a Jamaican deejay, the disco-era tune was also early to the gate in connecting New York’s fast-paced lifestyle with the drug that was increasingly becoming the fuel for that pace.