Tony Matterhorn’s ‘Dutty Wine’ Certified Silver In The UK

Tony Matterhorn’s 2006 dancehall anthem Dutty Wine was certified Silver in the United Kingdom on Friday, August 15, according to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). A Silver single denotes 200,000 units (sales and streams combined) in the country.

The milestone arrives nearly two decades after the track ignited one of Dancehall’s biggest global crazes, and follows renewed interest around a remaster released by VP Records earlier this year.

Dutty Wine—recorded on the Smash (aka Dutty Wine) riddim—was inspired by the head-twisting dance of the same name. Matterhorn opens the track by crediting the dance’s originators Dyema (Attitude) and the Attitude Gyal crew. The riddim, produced by Stephen “Supa Hype” Davis, also featured Alaine’s Baby U, T.O.K’s Haters and other lesser known tracks from Vybz Kartel, Mavado, Busy Signal, Wayne Marshall and others.

On the charts, Dutty Wine reached No. 24 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 and No. 17 on the Billboard Hot Rap Songs chart. The official music video has over 36 million views on YouTube.

In a 2021 interview with the Let’s Be Honest podcast, Matterhorn recalled that the idea for the song was first floated to Bounty Killer, but he left upset after the Warlord mocked his choice of words.

Matterhorn said he went to Master Lee’s studio, saw Bounty outside “under the mango tree,” and told him, “mi have two numba one fi yuh.” Bounty shot back: “A wha happen to yuh Matterhorn man? Numba eleven man!” The crowd laughed, and Matterhorn admitted he “get vex,” though he added, “Killa neva mean nuttn bad by it.” Despite pressure to avoid saying “two” in Dancehall at the time (as it was considered a gay reference), Matterhorn stuck with it.

He recorded Dutty Wine the very next day at his Long Mountain home, not in a studio. “Dutty Wine was never voiced in a studio,” Matterhorn stated. “The Mbox was there on a coffee table and I sat in my couch… and I didn’t even have a microphone weh professionally hold by itself; I had a hand held Shure mike.”

He recalled Busy Signal and Ding Dong cooking sardines in his kitchen during the session. And when his neighbor Nicky, a netballer, and her teammates dropped by and started dancing, he ad-libbed a line about them on the spot as the lyrics “just started flowing.”