Few years in dancehall burned as hot as 2007. Mavado was turning gully pain into hymns, Vybz Kartel had broken from the Alliance and was firing back at his former bredren over every big riddim, and a Bermudian newcomer was crossing over to radio stations far beyond Kingston.
Producers like Daseca, Black Chiney, Don Corleon and a teenage Stephen “Di Genius” McGregor were building the beds that the whole island voiced on.
So what were the best dancehall songs of 2007? The twelve below are the tunes that defined the year in the dance, on the mixtapes and in the arguments that split fans into Gully and Gaza.
Some started rolling in late 2006 and only peaked in 2007. All of them still pull a crowd when a selector drops them today.
1. Mavado & Serani, “Dying” (2007)
“Dying” is the sound of 2007. Daseca’s Craig “Serani” Marsh built the riddim and sang the hook himself, and that chorus became his first real success as a singer.
Mavado matched it with the mournful, prayerful delivery that made him the most distinctive voice in the business.
VP released the single on July 24, 2007, and it anchored his debut album, Gangsta for Life: The Symphony of David Brooks. The song travelled.
New York’s Hot 97 played it heavily, and it went from sound system staple to crossover record. Nearly a decade later Drake sampled it on “9” in 2016, proof that the song’s ache had outlived the era that made it.
2. Mavado, “Weh Dem A Do” (2006)
The Red Bull & Guinness riddim first surfaced on Delly Ranks’ Pure Music in 2006. Mavado’s cut kept climbing, and the VP album version landed in July 2007 as one of the anchors of his debut.
Delly co-built the riddim with Stephen “Di Genius” McGregor, who was only 15 at the time, and MTV later called it the young producer’s “defining moment.”
The record was a huge Jamaican hit and found its way onto Billboard abroad. It shows how Mavado worked: menace and melody in the same breath, street reportage sung rather than barked.
For a generation of fans, this was the tune that made the gully sound official.
3. Vybz Kartel, “Nuh Badda Try” (2007)
If Mavado owned the melody, Kartel owned the attack. Nuh Badda Try” rides Di Genius‘ Tremor riddim, which was released by VP and later collected as the 127th installment of the Riddim Driven series.
The tune is martial and threatening, a warning to rivals to stay away, and its timing mattered. Kartel had left the Alliance in 2006, and from then until 2009 he and Mavado traded searing disses over the hottest riddims on the island.
Tremor became one of the most-voiced beds of the decade, with 33 tunes on it, but this is the cut people still reach for.
4. Collie Buddz, “Come Around” (2006)
Nobody saw Collie Buddz coming. Colin Harper, a white Bermudian with no Jamaican pedigree, put out “Come Around” as a single in November 2006.
It carried him onto the Jamaican dancehall charts, conquered Europe first and then reached American urban radio.
By the time his self-titled Columbia album dropped in June 2007, the song was everywhere. The album entered the Billboard 200 and included a G-Unit remix with Young Buck and Tony Yayo, a sign of how far the record had crossed.
Its easy, sing-jay bounce opened a lane for him, and he followed it in 2007 with “Blind to You.”
5. Busy Signal, “These Are the Days” (2007)
When Greensleeves put together The Biggest Ragga Dancehall Anthems 2007, the compilation opened with this one. That says a lot about where Busy Signal stood.
Produced by Daseca, the team behind “Dying,” “These Are the Days” shows the side of Busy that made him dancehall’s great shapeshifter: thoughtful and grown up, a breath of air between the war tunes. It had a long life.
It turned up again as a single on Loaded, his VP album from September 2008, next to “Jail” and “Whine Pon Di Edge.”
By then Busy was also running with “Nah Go A Jail Again,” “Smoke Some High Grade,” “Tic Toc” and “Unknown Number,” but this is where his 2007 began.
6. Mavado, “Mr. Palmer” (2007)
Some disses hint. This one names its target in the title. Kartel’s real surname is Palmer, and Mavado’s “Mr. Palmer (Kartel Diss)” landed on Black Chiney’s Drumline riddim as his direct answer in the war.
Supa Dups and Khan built Drumline as a stripped, percussive bed, and it suited a song that was all cold aim.
This is the record that hardened the Gully and Gaza divide among fans. The two camps held a press conference to call a truce in 2007, but the beef rolled on until they finally reconciled in December 2009. Play it now and the tension still comes through.
7. Vybz Kartel, “Mofraudo” (2007)
Kartel’s counterpunch lived on Timeline, the twin of Drumline, which Black Chiney released as a combined CD on May 8, 2007.
The title is a sharp play on Mavado’s name, the kind of wordplay that made Kartel the most quotable lyricist of his generation.
Drumline and Timeline turned into a battlefield and a showcase at once, with 34 different artists voicing the pair, including Busy Signal, Elephant Man, Mr. Vegas, Munga, T.O.K., Aidonia and Sasco.
“Mofraudo” and “Mr. Palmer” sit on the same Black Chiney project, which makes this one of the few riddim albums that holds both sides of a war.
8. Vybz Kartel, “Yuh A Wife” (2007)
Kartel spent 2007 at war, but he never forgot the ladies. “Yuh A Wife” came off Don Corleon’s production line and was released through Greensleeves.
It is a reminder that the Teacher’s dominance came from range as much as venom. It sits on the label’s 2007 anthems compilation alongside the year’s biggest party tunes.
It moves at a quick, danceable clip that kept it in rotation long after the diss records had done their damage.
In a year when Kartel’s name was tied to the clash, this was the song that played in the bedroom and the session at the same time.
9. Elephant Man, “Booty Clap” (2007)
On a riddim known for war, Elephant Man did what he always did: turned it into a party.
His Drumline cut was released in clean, raw and extended versions, and the raw title is a good deal more explicit than “Booty Clap.”
Either way, the instruction is plain, and it comes with the cartoon energy and shouted ad-libs that made Ele the Energy God of dancehall.
While Mavado and Kartel used Black Chiney’s drums for gun talk, Ele heard a dance floor in the same beat. The fact that both worked on one riddim is why Drumline still gets a rewind.
10. Mr. Vegas, “Mek Dem R.I.P.” (2007)
Mr. Vegas has always moved between the sweet singer and the hard-hitting deejay, and his Drumline cut leans firmly toward hard hitting.
Listed as “Mek Dem Rest In Peace (R.I.P.)” on some releases, it rides Black Chiney’s drums with the edge the riddim called for, and it helped make Drumline the most crowded and competitive juggling of the year.
Vegas was busy beyond it too. “Tek Weh Yuhself,” produced by Kirk Bennett, made the Greensleeves 2007 anthems set.
Together the two tunes show a veteran adjusting to a younger, rougher dancehall without losing his own voice.
11. Vybz Kartel & Mavado, “Happiest Days” (2007)
Here is the strangest record of the year. In the middle of a rivalry that split the island, Kartel and Mavado share a tune on the Laminated riddim for GT Promotion.
Coming after the Alliance split, while both men were trading disses, “Happiest Days” feels like a snapshot from a road not taken.
Listening back now, knowing the war ran until their 2009 reconciliation, gives it an odd poignancy. It also shows how deep Mavado’s 2007 ran.
That year he also voiced “Gangster” for Don Corleon, “Chat Too Much” on After Dark and “Brown Bottle” on Darker Shadow, among many others.
12. Bugle, “What We Gonna Do” (2007)
Daseca had an extraordinary year, and Bugle’s “What We Gonna Do” is the third piece of that story.
It sits at track two on the Greensleeves 2007 anthems compilation, right behind Busy Signal’s “These Are the Days,” which puts the production house’s work back to back at the top of the year’s defining collection.
Daseca had already earned its stripes with “Willie Bounce,” “We Be Burnin'” and “Dutty Wine,” but in 2007 the team moved toward something more soulful.
Bugle, a conscious-leaning voice with a gritty texture, fit that move perfectly, and the song gave him a foothold.
Why 2007 Still Echoes
The year did not end quietly. Bruce Golding became prime minister in September 2007, and his government’s selective enforcement of the Noise Abatement Act fell hard on dancehall, with Mavado among the first targets.
Mavado himself spent the second half of the year under a legal cloud after a July 27 incident left him on bail and without a US visa, though the charges were dropped in June 2008.
Even so, the music kept moving. A Gleaner party report from December 20, 2007 described a session full of Mavado hits, Bounty Killer’s “Nuh Fren Fish” and Code Red spinning a Kartel dub. That is 2007 in one night: rivalry and pressure, and through it all a dance that would not stop.
