Dennis Brown, Barrington Levy Trod To Top Of iTunes Reggae Charts After ‘The Harder They Fall’
Following the release of the Jeymes Samuels directed western The Harder They Fall on Netflix, two of the songs that appeared in the movie, namely Dennis Brown’s Promised Land and Barrington Levy’s Here I Come, have made it into the top five on the Reggae iTunes Chart.
Promised Land is currently at No. 1, while Here I Come has moved up to No. 5. Both songs were released long before the invention of the iTunes chart and are making their first top-five appearance on the chart after they made up part of the film’s score.
The Harder They Fall’s official soundtrack also uses a number of original music including a new reggae track by Levy titled Better Than Gold, and Koffee‘s title track The Harder They Fall.
Recorded with roots-reggae band Aswad in 1985—after Brown’s inspirational visit to Africa, Promise Land first appeared on his Revolution album. It has been sampled by Nas and Damian Marley for their song Land of Promise (2010) on the Distant Relatives album.
Brown died on July 1, 1999, at the age of 42 in Kingston, Jamaica.
Here I Come is the title track on Levy’s independent album that was recorded at Channel One Studios in Kingston, Jamaica. The album was released in 1985 on Vinyl LP on Time I Records, then again in 1988 on CD then again as a digital release in 2001 under Jet Star Music. It is one of the most recognizable tracks in reggae music having scored placements in Saints Row 2 and Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.
It was sampled by Rebel MC (Congo Natty) on his 1991 UK Top 40 hit “Tribal Base”, with Levy performing the sample on Top of the Pops.
The track was also sampled on Harlem World from the Ol’ Dirty Bastard debut solo album ( Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version produced by Big Dore) and more popularly by Shyne in the hip hop single Bad Boyz.
The track was also sampled on The Vibes is Right by Fabolous on “Frenemies (feat. Josh K)” from his Summertime Shootout 3 album.
Speaking on the use of Jamaican music throughout the movie at the BFI London Film Festival several weeks ago, producer Jay-Z said there was a good reason.
“If you think about the time when…Western (movies) were super popular and it was the only thing on TV influencing the world. You have people in Jamaica dressed up as cowboys,” the BAM rapper said, per World Music Views.
He continued, “So these are the images that they seen on TV, there are actual dub-plates that exist over western music and we have a few of those”.
The Harder They Fall, which is headlined by Idris Elba, Jonathan Majors, and Oscar-winner Regina King, received a limited release in theatres on October 22 before it became available on Netflix on November 3.