Words by Jesse Serwer—
It’s safe to assume that producers and deejays will still be re-cutting and voicing Sleng Teng in 2085. King Jammy’s game-changing 1985 digital dancehall riddim, as primal and basic as it is, is still current nearly 30 years later. Following Major Lazer’s relick of Sleng Teng on “Fruit Juice” from Snoop Lion’s Reincarnated, Jahdan Blakkamoore (who co-wrote much of Reincarnated) has teamed with fellow Brooklynites Tour de Force for “Pool Party” on a revamped version of the riddim.
A summer anthem just in time for the season’s end, the feelgood track is the first release from Tour de Force, a production duo consisting of Jay Spaker (a/k/a Double Tiger) and Quoc Pham (a/k/a DJ Q-Mastah), and their label, Dub-Stuy Records. Q recently spent a year building a 15,000-watt, 12-component sound system dubbed the “Tower of Sound.” “Pool Party” represents the first of many efforts to make new tunes for that system; an LP, Battle Cry, is due out this fall.
We played this one to close out our radio show, The LargeUp Sessions, on Thursday, and it is definitely a TUNE. Get the exclusive stream and download below, ahead of “Pool Party”‘s official release tomorrow, and catch a preview of the video below.
