![]() She’s made a successful career out of it for over 20 years, garnering a Grammy and numerous other awards in its lewd pursuit. “Any way you want it baby/Gymnastic, acrobatic, slide back boogie…” To Saw, seeking pleasure was a calling that she sought brazenly and wholeheartedly. In 1994, Saw made her album debut on VP Records with Lover Girl, and dropped the definitive single, “Hardcore.” She opens the track boasting about the numerous positions and ways in which she can please-and, really, intimidate-her lover. Then she ran laps lyrically around her competition, both male and female. Born Marion Hall in the Saint Mary Parish of Jamaica, Lady Saw adopted her now-infamous rugged moniker and brash sexual persona in hopes of keeping pace with the best and bawdiest male deejays. Whether profane or sacred, Lady Saw is a woman who’s passionately beholden to extremes. But the song has remained unstoppable: Nicki Minaj shouts it out in her “ Monster” verse, and it continues to pop up on dance floors, the ultimate expression of women embracing their dancehall queendom. ![]() The British Virgin Islands took this one step further when they banned the song and Matterhorn from performing altogether. Upon its release in 2006, “Dutty Wine”’s accompanying head-rotating and hip-gyrating dance, became such a global phenomenon, it was banned in several countries for its potential neck and spinal damage. His flirtatious, dirty lyrics, coupled with his hardcore dancehall style, has made him one of the most entertaining and sought-after selectors around. After being endorsed by the godfather of dancehall, Bounty Killer, he went solo. Tony “Mentally Ill” Matterhorn first gained his appetite for dancehall while playing the western Kingston-based soundsystem Inner City, and went on to gain his footing with the Brooklyn crew King Addies. In 2008, Sasha turned her focus to gospel, and stopped performing her past hits, but you can still hear her dancehall come-to-Jesus on any good floor. ![]() This success led to multiple re-releases of the song along with several remixes, most notably one featuring reggaeton artist Ivy Queen and another with the international party starter Fatman Scoop. Lyrically lusting after an elusive lover, Sasha leaves her DJ days behind, finds her groove, and boasts her way to international recognition: “I will rock you to the rhythm of the rain/And ride you like a getaway train,” she sings. But as the “Bookshelf” riddim continued to grow, and as Sean’s song became a bonafide hit, “Dat Sexy Body” took on a life of its own, crossing over into the mainstream mix show market. By comparison, Sasha was still only somewhat known for one raunchy 1992 underground hit, “Kill the Bitch,” which featured her DJing and rapping rather than singing. Sean Paul’s “Deport Them,” also on the riddim, had all dancehall ears at the moment. Originally released in 1998, on Tony Kelly’s “Bookshelf” riddim, Sasha’s “Dat Sexy Body” was not an immediate hit. This evolution is constant and, even now, the tonality of dancehall is being transformed again as Auto-Tune replaces echo chamber and digital files replace vinyl as the unit of meaning. To truly be rated as one of the best dancehall anthems of all time, a boom tune must echo through all these worlds-and in some cases, rearrange their orbit, shifting the center of gravity and starting a whole new wave of dancehall evolution. And the clashes and dances of downtown Kingston are just the heliocentric core of a whole universe of interlocking circles that make up dancehall culture across a pan-Caribbean audience, a West Indian diaspora, and a global touring circuit. (Mostly outdoors, ironically despite the name, instances when Jamaicans dance in an actual hall are vanishingly rare.) The spontaneous headtop gyration of a dancehall queen is just as valid an affirmation as a forward in a clash. Before soundsystems clashed, they existed to make people dance. Clashes may provide clarity in the moment, but they are not the only space where dancehall comes to life. Then there’s the more opened-ended question of “best” in what context? Even judging the best song on a riddim-or individual beat, on which multiple artists voice their own songs-can be a near-impossible feat.
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