Pose Off: The Story of Screechy Dan

Words by Jesse Serwer, Photos by Mark Dixon—

“Prospect Park is like a home away from home,” Robert “Screechy Dan” Stephens says of the massive park at the center of Brooklyn, ground zero of New York’s Caribbean community. “You barbecue, you bring your blanket, you take a nap, when food ready somebody wakes you up and says, Food is ready, dinner is served…”

After meeting at the Church Avenue train station near his home in Flatbush, Brooklyn, we head over to the park and the nearby Parade Grounds for a literal stroll through memory lane with the dancehall artist best known for singing the praises of girls inna dem pum pum shorts, on 1993’s “Pose Off.” Though originally from Kingston, Jamaica (where he lived in the infamous Concrete Jungle area), the diminutive deejay and sometimes singer has spent most of his life in Brooklyn.

He first arrived in 1977, settling in Crown Heights. “When I came that was the wickedest snowstorm I ever seen,” Screechy says of his culture shock-inducing greeting to life outside the tropics. “People walk [ed] on top of vehicles because the snow was so high.”

As a kid in Jamaica, his father, also called Screechy (“I’m Screechy the 3rd—my grandfather was also called Screechy, my son is Screechy the 4th”) established his own sound system, mainly for his kids’ entertainment. “He built it for me, because he knew I enjoyed music,” Screechy says. “He would go out and buy me records, and he built a set. That made me love music more, because I was supported by the father that I loved so much. When I came to New York, that’s when I wrote my first lyrics. In ’78, I was talking about design, and clothes, like Sergio Valente and Calvin Klein. I must have been the first person talking about flossing.”

While living on President Street in Crown Heights, and attending nearby Prospect Heights High School, Screechy formed the Vital crew and sound system with neighbors and classmates James Bond, Night Rider, Daddy Pecka and the late singer Trevor Sparks.

“There was five of us growing and writing lyrics together, and [we] started chatting at basement parties and little events in the neighborhood and became the neighborhood superstars,” Screechy recalls. “[We] used to make cassettes, and did a lot of duplication of tapes—next thing you know, [the] cassettes start reaching England, different islands, and we actually start touring off the strength of the cassettes. The first time we traveled to do shows, it was in Bermuda. I can’t count how many times I’ve been to Bermuda.”

Other friends at that time included female deejays Sister Carol and Shelly Thunder, before either had begun their forays into music. In fact, Screechy says it was he who gave Shelly Thunder the idea for her signature hit, 1988’s “Kuff.”

“I didn’t involve with the writing, but I told her she should do a song kuffing out some man,” Screechy says. “The artist Lecturer had a song “Nasty Gal Fi Get a Lick,” talking about slapping up some girls. I told Shelly you should do one smacking the hell out of some dude, kuff them up.”

His first official label release on his own was a record called “D.J. Pattern D.J. Impersonation.” Cut for the Stereo Pride label sometime around 1984 or 1985, the single showcased Screechy’s uncanny ability to replicate and imitate the voices of of other dancehall deejays, including Brigadier Jerry, Toyan and a young Super Cat.

Around this time, the Vital crew was absorbed into Startone, a Brooklyn sound system and record label run by selector Acka T, members of which also included Jango Thriller, Amsha Rankin, and current radio host Candyman. Vital, meanwhile, formed its own label, Vital Roots, for which Screechy cut records including “Wrestler,” on which he fancied himself a pro fighter grappling with the likes of ’80s WWF stars Hulk Hogan and Junkyard Dog.

Read Part 2, as Screechy breaks down the story of Ruff Entry Crew, the “Wu-Tang Clan of Dancehall,” signing to Payday Records, and getting bigged up by Foxy Brown.

In the early 1990s, Screechy came together with fellow Brooklynites Shaggy, Rayvon, Red Fox, Baja Jedd, Mr. Easy and Nikey Fungus to form the Ruff Entry Crew, a massive conglomeration which could be described without exaggeration as the Wu-Tang Clan of dancehall. “I gave the crew its name,” Screechy says. “I was saying, [the music business is] not an easy entry at all, it’s rough.”

Though they never came together for an official project (Their lone recording as a unit is “Dancehall Scenario” from Red Fox’s As a Matter of Fox LP), the crew terrorized live venues across New York and the Northeast with their high-energy performances.

“We used to bumrush the stage,” Screechy says. “Fox would always go up as the energy—he’s like the original Energy God— and wake the crowd up. And after that, I’d run on and [yodels the tune of Hank Williams’ “Lonesome Blues”]. We used to do it to keep the crowd on their toes, without any rest.” Among the classic combination tunes Ruff Entry Crew members recorded with one another are Screechy and Red Fox’s “Pose Off,” Rayvon and Shaggy’s “Big Up” and Red Fox and Rayvon’s “Bashment Party.” (Here’s a clip of Screechy stepping in for Rayvon and performing the latter, alongside Red Fox).

In fact, Shaggy’s second-ever recording to be released, “Woman Yuh Fit (Big Bus),” was the B-side to Screechy Dan’s classic reggae version of Hank Williams’ “Lonesome Blues,” in 1991. “Shaggy was still in the Marines,” Screechy says of the artist who would soon become dancehall’s most commercially successful ambassador. “He would get off from the Marines, come up, voice, and go back.”

With that record, Screechy became the first dancehall artist (and perhaps the first Jamaican) to yodel on record, but he is best known for “Pose Off,” arguably the genre’s definitive ode to girls in tight shorts—an area with much competition. (See also Buju Banton’s “Batty Rider” and Pan Head’s “Punny Printer”). As with “Lonesome Blues,” the track saw the always innovative Screechy pull from another genre—this time the melody of Kaoma’s “Lambada,” years before J.Lo did the same— to bring a unique flavor to dancehall. While his earlier records generally featured his deejaying talents, “Pose Off” showcased him as a singer.

“We had the idea for ‘Pose Off’ from Labor Day,” Screechy says, referring to the West-Indian American Day Parade, the highlight of the calendar in Caribbean Brooklyn. “We had the set outside, on President Street, and a lot of girls was passing in them little pum pum shorts. And me and Red Fox just started freestyling. I said “whoah, dem girls so sharp,” and start using that Latin melody.” Another song released around this time, “Goonie Goo Goo,” was inspired by a skit from Eddie Murphy’s Delirious.

Off the success of “Pose Off” and “Skin Out,” on Sting International’s Big Up riddim, Screechy was offered a record deal by Patrick Moxey’s Payday label, at that time distributed by London Records. The deal, which briefly made Screechy labelmates with a young Jay-Z, seemed attractive at the time, proved to be something of a non-starter. But it did give him the opportunity to release his lone full-length LP, 1994’s The Mission.

“That didn’t work out very well [financially], it was a good experience, though,” Screechy says. “To rub shoulders with knowledgeable people, and listen to what they say, I embraced that more than anything else.”

While Screechy says he’s never performed on a major stageshow back home in Jamaica, his talent hasn’t gone unnoticed by the broader music world. Most notably, Foxy Brown shouted him out in a classic line from her 2001 single with Spragga Benz, “Oh Yeah.” And Complex magazine recently noted Screechy’s yodeling talents in their “Most Underappreciated Skills in Music” roundup.

The Foxy shoutout was particularly satisfying for Screechy, who counts himself a huge fan of the Brooklyn MC.

“I was in my kitchen cooking and I heard a new song from Foxy Brown start play, so I turned the radio up because Foxy Brown is definitely my favorite female rapper,” he recalls. “I was like yo, this beat is hot and Foxy is eating it up, [then] she said “Gangster, pose off like Screechy Dan.” I was like oh shit, she bigged me up, too. It hit me so surprisingly, I was trying to rewind the radio. I forgot it was the radio, not a CD!”

Back in the ’90s, Screechy used his advance from Payday/London to form his own record company, called Brick Wall. Currently he’s working on establishing a new one, called Top Don, through which he plans to finally issue an LP showcasing the totality of his talents.

“People day in and day out complement me on my writing skills,” Screechy tells me as we cross out of Prospect Park and head over to Flatbush Avenue for a snack at local landmark Peppa’s Jerk Chicken. As we walk down the Ave, person after person stops him to show their respect. Screechy greets them all with an infectious smile. “I never used to see what they were talking about. Until I got a little older. That even fertilized my interest more. I’ll never stop writing. Every day I write. If I should write all the ideas that I have, I probably would have a song for every artist in the world.”

Read on for Part 3, as Screechy Dan tells the stories behind his essential records.

Essential Screechy Dan

Screechy tells the stories behind his most essential recordings:

“Lonesome Blues” (1991)

I used to listen to different kinds of music, and I always loved country. I always tell people country music and reggae is related. I realized that from since I was a kid growing up. Country music is telling things in actuality, talking about stuff they did this morning, and I find it closely related to reggae. That’s why if you take a country song lyrics and put it on a reggae beat, it just sits like it belong there. When Mr. Easy do “Rhinestone Cowboy,” that sounds like it was originally a reggae song.

Back then, when we used to come to Biltmore Ballroom, people used to anticipate what I would come with next, because I always came with weird, out-of-the-box lyrics that I wrote myself, or adapting certain things reggae artists don’t really touch and switching them up. I even used to dress weird, like how you see Lee Perry.

I heard Hank Williams sing, “I went down the river to…” and I said you know what, nobody knows this song, and I love to take chances. The first time I did it was 1984, in Biltmore. And the whole place went crazy. And since ’84, up until now, it never fails, every time I do the [yodels] O-lay-lay-ye-yah-O-lay the whole place just buss. Anytime I perform it, I always change up the words.

It was in 1992 that we finally record it, but it wasn’t in a studio, it was in [producer] Sting [International]’s bedroom. He used to have this half inch tape, reel-to-reel, and we voiced “Goonie Goo Goo” at the same time. Sting is a genius. That’s how I ended up doing the yodel.

“Skin Out” (1992)

That’s a next freestyle I recorded coming from jail. It was an overnight thing, I came out the following day. I think I called Red Fox and they told me they were already heading to the studio in Manhattan [with producer Sting International].

I started creating my own reality that day. I was acting. I exaggerated just to be creative. I wasn’t in prison, it was just an overnight lock-up but I exaggerated like I was this ex convict in for years who needs some pum pum. It was creating a story behind me getting locked up the night before, and I’m acting like I’m telling a girl I’ve been in jail so long, and I need some. That’s what the song was about. I told her the oil was caking up in my nut. It was getting hard up, like coconut milk!

I had two songs on that track. There was the one with Baja, “Big Bills.” That was like a part two for “Pose Off”—that summer, girls-wearing-shorts type of songs Those were wonderful times in the studio, man, the whole crew was just rolling tight.

“Pose Off” with Red Fox (1993)

We had the idea for “Pose Off” from Labor Day, it wasn’t written. We was on President, the blcok where we had Vital [Sound]. It’s close to Eastern Parkway, so every Labor Day we had the set outside, and a lot of girls was passing in them little pum pum shorts. And me and Red Fox just started freestyling. I said “whoah, dem girls so sharp,” and start using that Latin melody. And Fox said, “Yo, let’s link up Sting!” Sting was on his way to mix Dirtsman’s “Hot This Year.” We got to Philip Smart’s studio, [HC& F in Freeport, Long Island] and Sting said, “Before I do anything else, voice that song.” It Me and Fox were on the same track, in the voice room at the same time. We was just having fun. Philip Smart is big in the business, with all of these outlets and connects [other labels didn’t hae]. And “Pose Off” went boom, that was it.

“Pose Off” was released in ’93, when Buju Banton was dominating the charts. There was this one song giving him problems. Because of Buju, “Pose Off” did not move to No. 1. Buju was No. 1 and No. 2 and “Pose Off” was No. 3. Buju was blocking us out! We tried to elbow him out the way!

Sometimes my friends [sing it] so they can get girls. The type of person I am, I would not approach someone and tell them I’m Screechy Dan… But girls knowing who I am, and that I did that song? Ohhh Jesus, it provide a lot of pum pum.

“Boomin In Your Jeep” (1994)

Kenny Dope and Todd Terry used to work with Sleeping Bag Records, and the owner was the brother of the owner of [Screechy’s then-label] Signet Records, Ben Socolov. Todd Terry and them used to be in the building on the same floor. Todd Terry said I got this sample from A Tribe Called Quest, see if you can come up with something on that. Which I did. I wrote about seven bars, and spit the rest freestyle. That was really my first hip-hop reggae type thing. Last year when I went to Europe, people would shout “Boomin In Ya Jeep,” and I would try to remember it. “Boomin In Ya Jeep” wasn’t a part of my regular routine.

The whole setting [of the video] was organized by me. I said let’s go to Jones Beach. People think it’s Jamaica. You know how on the beach, you find branches from the trees? I hooked it up so it looked like coconut trees. I brought some sheets and two old pants and we set up a clothesline. I’m good like that. People always ask me to decorate. I could draw, too. I think I just have this wide imagination, and creative mentality.

Screechy Dan plays the Sweet Spot Festival with the Rice and Peas crew at Jackie Robinson Park in Harlem, New York, Sat. Aug. 17.