Record of 2002, selected by Peter Dalton:
WHAT A DAY - TANYA STEPHENS
(EXTERMINATOR)
While gifted singers on the distaff side in Jamaica have largely been
under-recorded if their name isn’t Marcia Griffiths, the feisty Tanya
Stephens (b.1973) is as near to an exception as you’ll find. “Yuh
Nuh Ready For Dis Yet” (Mad House, 1996), “Handle The Ride” (Digital B,
1997) and “Big Heavy Girl” (Shocking Vibes, 1997) all left no doubt she
could ride the dancehall rhythms of the day with as every bit as much
aplomb as the rudest of rude boy deejays.
But “What A Day”, which
appeared five years after the last of those just mentioned, showed a
different side to her talent, displaying an acute social
consciousness. Over the sort of semi-acoustic rhythm employed by
Buju Banton’s equally reflective “Untold Stories” of 1995, Tanya sang
of being “Tired of the hunger I see on people’s faces/Tired of the
animosity between the races/Tired of corruption in high and low
places”.
Ms. Stephens then went on to point out she was equally
weary of “Politicians who say they care”, churches which she leaves
“feeling like she’s been robbed”, and a well-chosen assortment of other
social ills, including the teenage mother’s kid who might one day grow
up to rob her house.
She concluded with the thought that she’s “…just
waiting for the fire to rain/Burn down everything and start clean/What
a day when war becomes a thing of the past”. Sentiments, in fact,
not that different from those of her Bobo-dread contemporaries.
Peter Dalton
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