Sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men go awry. In most cases, you can start all over or simply abort and go to find something else to do, but in the case of a career, and particularly in music, you often don't have that luxury and changing courses often can require divine intervention. Over the years we've seen so many artists start out very promising or build themselves to very promising levels only to either come tumbling down or to virtually plateau and thus find themselves remaining stagnant, literally as well as in the minds of the fans. Here are ten of the most curious cases in my opinion. Artists who have distinguished themselves for one reason or another, but have to follow through in the way we (and THEY) might've imagine. I submit, for your approval, the biggest underachievers in Reggae today.
{note: I tried to remain at least somewhat current}
{note 2: Artists are ranked according to the size of the gap (or perceived gap) between the expectations of what they are and what they might've been. 10 means the smallest gap, 1 means the largest}
{note 3: No Soca}
{note 4: Overachievers list coming next week}
#10. Aidonia
Yep! Aidonia makes this list for a variety of reasons despite being locally one of the most popular artists in Jamaica and quite possibly being one of the greatest wordsmiths the Dancehall has ever seen already. All of those reasons, however in my opinion, are under the umbrella of one grander idea: As I’ve been saying for the past couple of years, he’s simply ahead of his time. And I don’t mean that in the very lame and cliché way you usually hear such things about artists, I mean it almost factually, he’s ahead of his time. Aidonia’s strength is his masterful, almost comically ridiculous and downright CRUEL (when at his best) wordplay and such abilities aren’t very appreciable by people who don’t know what in the hell you’re saying. So, for someone in his position, you almost have no crossover opportunities until the LANGUAGE itself crosses over, inherently, making his music distinctly local. That’s fine, but like Kartel before what you would hope is that he can become SO dominant locally (like Kartel) that it would seemingly sustain him and turn him into this kind of internationally regarded underground Dancehall kingpin, a status Kartel himself now currently enjoys. But the nearly 30 years old ‘Donia doesn’t even appear headed for that and while his peers time wise, most notably Busy Signal and Mavado, both continue to thrive internationally (both having two albums to their names with the biggest label in the world, while Aidonia has one (kinda/sorta) which was full of old material gathered together by his estranged former producer, Scatta), I wonder if I can find a casual fan who can name even one of Adonia’s tunes. That’s really unfortunate and while he still does have time, if I were a betting man, I’d say there’ll come a day, probably 20-30 years on from now when we’ll look back and realize just how special and INFLUENTIAL what Aidonia is doing actually was, but unfortunately, in the tangible sense, it’ll be 20-30 years too late.
#9. Predator
Yes, #10 on this list probably has more talent in his eye brows than Predator and yes again, it is most certainly telling that it took me FOREVER to find an even remotely decent picture of him for the sake of this post, but giving credit where it’s due, one has to recall that just a few short years ago, Predator was a big deal. The former poster boy of Jamaican mental illness and the Mr. ‘Mad sick/head nuh good/get ahead/head ah fly’ scored hit after hit and while he certainly wasn’t the most lyrically talented of the bunch, seemed destined for a course of Elephant Man like appeal due to his ability to HYPE. Well that was back from 2004-2006 and since then, things have pretty much dried up for him seemingly. Somewhere in that warehouse of Greensleeves Records (which I simply MUST visit some day) exists a signed contract from Predator with the label and while it would now, seemingly, be up to being fulfilled by VP/Greensleeves, you’ll probably sooner see an album from the one named ‘Achis Banton’, before Predator. I’m also tempted to rank him higher on this list and the only reason that I don’t is because I was never very high on his talents, however, looking at it from more of a global perception (meaning most Dancehall fans outside of me), you can certainly make the case for putting him in the upper half of this list and probably in the upper half of the upper half too.
#8. Khari Kill
Quickly! Name a song Khari Kill has done since the release of his WICKED 2007 album Picture Of Selassie! Quickly again! Name ANY song Kill has done that wasn’t on that album. If you can successfully do either of the two (without CHEATING), then you’re a very well informed fan. The thought here is to call the Trini chanter a one-hit wonder and if that were merely the case, he probably wouldn’t be on this list. Khari Kill, at his best, is an absolutely BRILLIANT artist. His album gets stronger and stronger each and every time I spin it and I wouldn’t at all be surprised if I deemed it a ‘modern classic’ at some point at all. Still, as far as the perception goes, his shining moment is and will always be the MAMMOTH ‘Picture of Selassie’ which got ‘his foot in the door’. Since then it doesn’t seem like he’s done much. I believe he had a new release party for the same album last year (with Ras Attitude if I recall correctly) and he’s still promoting it to my knowledge. He’s also headed to Europe in terms of recording, working with the very well regarded Bizzarri Records label, but again, much of the same crowd who knew about and love ‘Picture’ are unlikely to know that, which is just so damn unfortunate, it really is.
#7. Natty King
Like quite the previous entrant on this list, I think Natty King’s is a case which is just as much the doing of we, the fans, as he, himself. We just haven’t been paying enough damn attention apparently because the man has remained quite active and has remained SO active on so many levels that it’s actually quite remarkable. In consecutive years now, Natty King has released two albums Trodding and Born To Be Free for two different labels, one being Jamaican and the other being European. Of course the thirty-one tunes which comprise both albums were recorded over the years, but apart from Aidonia, I’d be willing to say that NO ONE on this list has seen a similar level of activity and Natty King certainly has more than that and they’re actually GOOD songs. It shouldn’t have been like that. As I’ve said before, Natty King has a built in fan base seemingly with audiences having been WELL accustomed to like-vibed artists Luciano, Bushman and Prince Malachi over the years, it would have been thought that he could essentially slide right in there after BOOMING fans worldwide with ‘No Guns To Town’. The subsequent album has gone pretty much all but unnoticed and he’s now seemingly focused his attentions on the European market. Hopefully it proves to be fruitful for him because it would really fuck up my day if Natty King has already seen the heights of his career in terms of popularity.
#6. I Wayne
I Wayne would have definitely been higher on this list were it not for the fact that he is enjoying an EXCELLENT 2010 thus far, but even his recent successes can’t dissolve the years and years of his remaining stagnant and just not doing anything to ‘wow’ the people which is exactly why we knew who he was in the first place and is something he can do by just trying, even just a little. So what happened? I just don’t know. His second album, 2007’s Book Of Life, was far less anticipated than his first just a couple of years earlier and the hits which ran that second album didn’t rise up to the levels of the tunes like the title track from the Lava Ground album and of course ‘Living In Love’ and ‘Can’t Satisfy Her’ and all of a sudden it seemed like that lustre was just gone. To put it into perspective, if you look at what’s going on now with someone like Tarrus Riley and Etana and Queen Ifrica and Duane Stephenson, I Wayne was supposed to have been in a row like that of artists (which would have included the previous entrant on this list as well as Warrior King (who was the last cut from this list) and Fantan Mojah (who doesn’t) and probably the HEAD of it also. There were people hailing him as the second coming of Garnet Silk in terms of potential impact and after riding the successes of ‘Can’t Satisfy Her’ for literally less than a year and having had reached with a few more singles, the very odd Portmore singer was snatched up by VP Records. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that most of the initial expectations were perhaps too lofty as when you get to learn more about I Wayne, it becomes CRYSTAL CLEAR that he just does his own thing pretty much and doesn’t seem to care very much what anyone else thinks about him, although apparently it did get to him a bit last year when he dropped ‘One Hit Wonder’ for Flava McGregor. Still, if he does care enough to maintain his current streak, I’d absolutely LOVE to drop him from this list altogether in the future.
#5. [Baby] Cham
The enigma that is Baby Cham. You’re going to find this absolutely odd because Cham is the one artist on this list who is also going to be on the overachievers list next week! And given the fact that his name (and work) is easily the most internationally popular on this list and probably any other list I could come up with due to ‘Ghetto Story’, I know I have my work cut out for me - So how is Baby Cham an underachiever??? It’s actually quite simple, his greatest strength is also his greatest ‘weakness’. For pretty much his entire career, Baby Cham has linked with arguably the greatest Dancehall producer in the history of the music, Dave Kelly. You can talk about others like Corleon and Di Genius and whoever else in terms of current times and while they’re certainly up there, at his best, Dave Kelly’s riddims are still, in my opinion, the best anywhere. HOWEVER, he DEFINITELY has absolutely no concept of the term ‘activity’ in terms of production and the fact that for a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG time seeing Cham voice a riddim for someone else besides Kelly’s Madhouse label was about as common as seeing the proverbial one-legged man in an ass kicking contest, definitely hurt him. Going MONTHS AND MONTHS without having a new tune certainly isn’t a rare thing for him and in fact he supposedly took some ’time off’ after having a child and . . . Yeah do you remember that time he took off? Me neither. The result is twofold - On one hand there’re now literally DOZENS of riddims which Cham should have reached and never did (my favourite to think about is what he would have done on Scatta’s Martial Arts Riddim) and on the other, we don’t actually know how good he is. If you think about it in terms of time and relative age, Cham might be in with the Kartel’s and Assassin’s of the world, but he’s almost NEVER thought of in those terms, it’s those guys (as talented as they certainly are) and then . . . Him. Me, as a fan, I would have ‘traded’ the big hit for a more consistent release schedule, but as the preeminent enigma of Dancehall, even though he’s done more as of late, like most things regarding Baby Cham, it’s something we’ll probably never know about. EVER.
#4. Mr. Lex
Do you even remember this guy? I had to actually dig out the disc of Mr. Lex’ first album Lexxus: AKA Mr. Lex to kind of transport myself back to the world as it was in the year 2000, when he was a big deal. That album, for VP Records, as much as I’ll most certainly bash on it these days, was by no means HORRIBLE and it was pretty decent actually. Boasting combinations with the likes of Nadine Sutherland, Kiprich (who‘ll almost certainly be mentioned next week), Dean Fraser, Wayne Wonder and even Lady Saw, his album was definitely high profile and revealed exactly what the self proclaimed “not a DJ, not a singer, but an entertainer” had been up to. He had been scoring HITS and to no small degree either, with tunes like ‘Full Hundred’, 'Ring Mi Cellie' and ‘Cook’ definitely scoring at the time (loved ‘Divine Reasoning’ and ‘Look How Long’ myself) and seemed on the verge of a HUGE career. What happened since then has been downright weird, however. First, seemingly without any problem, Lex began a contest to name his second album (and I participated, suggesting the retrospectively horrible The Undisputed) for VP and . . . The contest just kind of went on . . . And on and on and on. Six years later he delivered Statistics for 2B1 (who we love) which was pretty bad and yet another strong representation of what he was doing at the time and it was pretty bad, just as his output had been at the time. Lex was also involved in controversies along the way (and I’ll stay out of that), but in terms of an artist developing and doing what they need to do to grow, Mr. Lex is one of the very few examples I’ve ever seen of an artist, though CLEARLY talented, who just seemed to lose his vibes and depreciate over the years. And while it’s unlikely he’ll ever get it back to where it was, it would sure be nice if Mr. Lex, or Lexxus, whoever, time machined the Dancehall back to 2000 and was good again.
#3. Wayne Marshall
Never really liked Wayne Marshall’s music myself, but going by the general opinion, he easily deserves to be on this list. There was Wayne Marshall, the singer, and the DJ’s Vybz Kartel (whose name was undoubtedly being misspelled at the time) and Assassin, in that class (and later there was Mavado, the singer and Busy and Aidonia the DJ’s) and while the two DJ’s have gone onto really strong successes, Marshall hasn’t quite panned out the way you would have thought in becoming the next GREAT Dancehall singer. Instead, he was rather quietly ‘replaced’ by Mavado and apparently began to voice problems of actually getting his music played (payola) in Jamaica. He had no problem at all when he rose to prominence alongside Kartel and then up and coming producer Don Corleon and the duo featured with tunes like ’New Millennium’ and ‘Why You Doing It [Pts. 1 & 2]’ and he even dropped a largely forgotten album for VP, Martial Law in 2003 and eight years later and there’s been no followup, despite the fact that he’s remained a very high profile and popular artist (and he married Tami Chynn) in the meantime. However, as far actually making music goes, it appears as if Marshall’s best days are behind him.
#2. Turbulence
Had you told me a few years back that I’d be making a list like this and throwing Turbulence’s name at #2 on it, I would’ve absolutely been astonished. If ANYONE on this list had any reason to achieve for years and years to come, it would have seemingly been Turbulence who had one of the greatest set of circumstances give birth to his career. A product of the legendary Xterminator Camp, which also produced bonafide superstars Sizzla (with whom Turbulence toured) and Luciano (with whom Sizzla toured), Turbulence seemed like the heir apparent to do exactly what they did. Instead, his career trajectory seems to have more closely followed that of other lesser known Xterminator lights, Mikey General and Prince Malachi as being a respectable, but kind of second or third tier type of Roots artist in terms of popularity. In this case, however, I think it is largely Turbulence’s own doing because it almost seemed as if his career took a significant turn right in the middle of it and so unfortunately right after his still biggest hit to date, ‘Notorious’. After that, Turbulence just kind of started singing love songs . . . And more love songs and more love songs and more love songs and more love songs. There was the occasional hit, but he got to the point where the once DOMINANT singing (and the very first time I sat in a room and heard this man sing, I was damn near halted by how strong his voice was) and very strong deejaying Hungry Town native was basically wasting his talents saying ‘I Love You’ over and over. And while there was the occasional medium sized hit, I think it’s fairly telling that for an artist who voiced album after album for some of the biggest labels in the world (four VP albums to his credit in five years) he hasn’t released a single new one in almost three years, meanwhile his former label mate, Chezidek (who used to tour with Turbulence I believe), seemingly has one whenever he want. It is my opinion that the rebirth of the Turbulence of old would coincide with a significant rebirth of his former home, Xterminator, but at this point if anyone could CONSISTENTLY provide him with similar BEAUTIFUL and SPRAWLING backdrops over which to deliver those riveting vibes like he used to, I’d take it anyway I could get it.
#1. Merciless
And after all of that how can an artist who is currently (kind of) enjoying seemingly the tail end of his biggest and most profitable streak in years be at the head of this list??? Well, Merciless’ underachievement comes as a result of having blundered one of the largest gold-mines in recent Reggae history. First of all, make no mistake about it: Merciless is VERY talented and if you’re amongst the kind of fair-weather and/or casual fans who typically tend to write him off as a less talented Bounty Killer clone, you should stop, because he isn’t just that. Second of all, if you still have questions, one need only consider the amount of screwing up which occurred between December 26, 2000 and December 27, 2001, orchestrated by Merciless. At Sting 2000, Merciless gave an unforgettable spanking to arguably two of the greatest clash/war artists in the history of such a thing, Ninja Man and Bounty Killer on the same damn night, no question. The only controversy was whether or not to count a very playful (and perhaps intoxicated) Beenie Man amongst the fatally wounded at the end of the night (and while Merciless initially did with the WICKED ‘Sting History 2000’, if my memory serves me right, when the two participated on the same radio call, he refused to say it again when prompted by ‘The Doctor’). After that Merciless was the talk of the town dropping tune after tune, he had a website introducing various members of his War Camp and he supposedly was in negotiations with Sony and Sony Japan to do an album (which would have also worked at Greensleeves). The album unfortunately didn’t come before December 26, 2001 at which Merciless essentially sat around (after making just a terrible choice in wardrobe with a ski-mask) and listened to his own ‘execution’ via the Ninja after calling for Bounty because he refused to “clash wid duppy”. Bounty eventually came and joined on the fun as the crowd had seemingly tired of watching Merciless . . . Sit on a speaker, had already decided the outcome (and accurately so).
It was essentially the end of Merciless at that level, then and forever and easily one of the most fucked up cases of ABSOLUTELY BLOWING IT in a mere 366 days. Although he has comeback and arguably went through Ninja once again, only to ultimately give up the ghost to Gabriel, (himself a multi-time offending underachiever until recently) who would go on to make about 5,000 songs celebrating the occasion.
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