4. Ninjaman vs. Shabba Ranks (1990)
Shabba Ranks was on top of the dancehall world in 1990, on his way to blowing up worldwide shortly thereafter. But a Sting crowd doesn’t just rubber stamp a victory because one artist is hot at the time. Shabba found this out the hard way in 1990, when he was easily outmatched in his clash with Ninjaman, in a demonstration of his superior clashing skills. Wyclef cites the clash among his favorites, in our interview (which you can watch in its entirety here). “It’s just the character of the clash I love,” he told us. “More than the DJing of the clash, I love the talking — the badman talking, its violent talk… but it’s music talk…”