90s Dancehall Hitmakers For Reggae Sumfest’s Tribute To Producer Dave Kelly
Beenie Man, Bounty Killer, Cham, Wayne Wonder, and Spragga Benz, will headline Reggae Sumfest’s Madhouse Tribute to Dave Kelly on Saturday, July 23, in honour of the iconic, but reclusive Dancehall music producer/songwriter, who created a slew of seminal beats in the 1990s, including Pepperseed, Showtime, Joy Ride, Stink and Dugu Dugu.
Dave Kelly, who ruled the 1990s, and is labelled the greatest dancehall producer of all time, crafted scores of other legendary riddims such as Bogle, Arab Attack, Heartbeat, Return, Haunted, Heartbeat, Backyard, Fiesta, 85, and Bruk Out from which the majority of Dancehall hits were birthed.
Downsound Entertainment’s decision appears to be part of bid to soothe the musical tastebuds of fans of authentic Dancehall, who have been pining for the influential sounds of the 1990s and juggling riddims, for which Dave and his Madhouse record label are well-acclaimed, and mark the distinction from Trap beats which many continue to mislabel as Dancehall.
So far, Kelly’s other Madhouse artists to be featured on the 23rd are Frisco Kid and Mr Easy. Cham, to whom Kelly is friend, mentor and producer of his biggest hit song, Ghetto Story, will perform alongside Wayne Wonder with whom he partnered for Joyride, the title track for Kelly’s monster 1996 riddim, which spawned hits such as Lady Saw’s Sycamore Tree, Tanya Stephens Yuh Nuh Ready Fi Dis Yet and Buju Banton’s How it a Guh go.
Like they did at the 2019 show, Bounty Killer and Beenie Man will perform as a duo again, to hail the man also known as Welly Skelly, who wrote and produced the Warlord’s Dancehall classic’s Poor People Fed Up, and Look Into My Eyes; and Beenie’s Suzuki and Old Dog. Look and Old Dog were both co-written by Cham and Kelly.
“Name a better duo to see perform? We’ll wait… D Warlord @grunggaadzilla and D King of dancehall @kingbeenieman are back and ready fi shell it dung wid their MADHOUSE TRIBUTE to DAVE KELLY on Friday, JULY 23rd!🔥,” Downsound noted on its Instagram page on Friday.
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It comes as no surprise that Cham, who has not performed at Reggae Sumfest in years, will be part of the tribute. The Calabar High School old boy has long lauded Kelly as a genius, an inspiration and a musical mastermind, who inspired the writing of his biggest hit, Ghetto Story.
Cham and Kelly became a dynamic, dominant producer-artist duo after they met in 1993, when he was a third-former at Calabar High School. The Joyride producer had a policy of not recording juveniles back then, but gave Cham a “little audition”, found him to be suitable, and advised him to work on his breathing technique and return in two years, after graduation, “with proof of graduation”.
However, Cham had popped up at the studio every two weeks to endure that Kelly did not forget him. He got his break in the summer of 1995 when he made his debut on Kelly’s iconic Stink Riddim with the single titled The Mass which was released in 1996.
The Stink riddim became a huge success with chart-toppers such as Merciless’ Gal Dem Gizzada, Captain Barkey’s Go-Go Wine, Alley Cat’s Hot Gyal, Kelly’s own Girls Anthem, which he released under the moniker “Rude Boy Kelly”; Spragga Benz’ Girl Watchers; Tony Curtis’ Do You Wanna, and Wayne Wonder & Frisco Kid’s Dreamland.
Also on the riddim was Beenie Man’s Old Dog, which was written by Kelly, and which was also a mega hit. Kelly had first introduced General Degree to the lyrics, and asked him to voice the song, but the Brinks singer said he also shunned the song as the lyrics were not in keeping with his modest image and opted to voice a song called Daddy Teddy instead.
The bond between Kelly and the Cham strengthened after that, and according to Cham, his levels of respect for the socially-shy Dancehall legend remains sky-high to this day. Over the years he went on recorded a slew of hits for Kelly including Ghetto Story, Ghetto Pledge, More Wood, Many Many, Gallang Yah Gal, Hottie Hottie Crew, Vitamin S, and Another Level, and more recently, his Lawless album.
Kelly’s Showtime riddim, which spawned Dancehall hits such as Bounty Killer’s Eagle and the Hawk, Shaggy’s Hot Gyal, Beenie Man’s Hypocrite, Wayne Wonder’s Searching Dem Searching has been deemed “the greatest Dancehall riddim ever” by Cham.
Released in 1997, Showtime, featured two songs from Cham, Gallang Yah Gal and Hottie Hottie Crew. According to Cham, Kelly’s creativity and unconventional musical gymnastics in the making of the riddim, in that the producer immersed the sounds of people cheering in a football stadium in the beat going “ahhh” and “hey”, were the factors to which he attributed its greatness as this was novel in music.
A year earlier, in 1996, Kelly’s Duggu Duggu riddim took eth world by storm, featuring songs such as Wayne Wonder’s Glamour Girl, More Wood by Baby Cham and Duggu Duggu by Stranger.
Frisco Kid had voiced Think Wi Nice for Kelly and Beenie Man had recorded Suzuki, two songs which were penned by Kelly and initially given to General Degree as first choice. However Degree had opted out, as he was uncomfortable with the lyrics of both tracks and did Heavy Man instead, as the lyrics were less risqué even though he was still guarded, as the song was still too braggadocio for his taste.
Kelly’s 1991 Bogle riddim included songs such as Bogle Dance by Buju Banton, Stampede by Capleton, Good Like Gold by Daddy Screw, and Mr. Big Man by Terror Fabulous.
In 1995, Kelly had scorched the industry with Arab Attack. That riddim consisted of Beenie Man’s three hits Slam, Wickedest Ride and Certain Gal; Wayne Wonder’s Honey’s Fine; Professor Nuts’ Funny Guy; Frisco Kid with You And You Man and Yvette,Spragga Benz with W and Terro Fabulous with Open The Door.
The juggling riddim also had Louie Culture’s Salute Ghetto Youth and Bow And Salute; Donovan Steele’s Ms Bonefide, General Degree’s Mr Tickle; RBK with the title track Arab Attack; Daddy Screw with Buff Up Yu Chest, wGary Minott with Seek God and Fabulous with Behold.
Heartbeat aka Car Crash in 1994 was another of Kelly’s masterpieces. It consisted of Malfunction by Louie Culture; No Ride, Put Up Yuh Hand, by Terror Fabulous, Car Crash and Accident by Spragga Benz, Kerry by Daddy Screw and Donovan Steele; Heartbreaker, also by Daddy Screw and Maxi Priest, Yuh Own Di Man by Don Yute, Wah Wah by Frankie Sly and Wackie News by Frisco Kid.
In 1996 Kelly had also released the Haunted riddim another monster hit which consisted of Bounty Killer’s Worthless Bwoy, Woman Mi Name by Lady Saw, Bull Inna Pen by Richie Stephens, Dolly House by Spragga Benz, Break Up and Make Up by Cham, The Best by Wayne Wonder and H.O.T. by Textra.
Kelly, has kept himself out of the spotlight, so much so that most artists under 40, except maybe for Spice, have never had the opportunity to come in contact with him. Only two photos of Dave Kelly can be found online, one from Penthouse, certainly, no written media interview.
However, the mystique surrounding the enigmatic Dancehall producer, was demystified somewhat, on his 51st birthday last year, by one of his biggest aficionados, Ainsley “Notnice” Morris, after the So Mi Like it producer uploaded a short video of a youthful Kelly, whom he declared the “Greatest of all Time”, speaking during an in-studio interview at Donovan Germaine’s Penthouse studio.
That video was also shared by Downsound Executive Skatta Burrell, on Friday with the soft-spoken Kelly, then a studio engineer and arranger, looking quite at ease as he introduced the members of his production team, praising them, while explaining that his and Penthouse’s ethos, was to take unknown artistes and propel them to stardom.
“Well, mi first priority is an engineer. An mi produce, an mi scribble two ting wid mi bredrin Buju more time,” he quipped. “Mi basically do everything except sing”.
Penthouse famous for breaking artistes, enuh. Wi start with young artistes that nobody nuh know of and groom dem and bring dem and meck dem inna star. Like yuh know Cutty Ranks, Tony Rebel, Wayne Wonder, Buju Banton, Apache Scratchie, the works. And people weh you neva hear bout from long time, Beres Hammond, Marcia Griffiths, you know. We have a lot of engineers: Tony Kelly mi bredda, Delly Ranks mi sidekick and Snakie, Stumpy- caan figet him and myself enuh,” the Kingston native added.
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