Wha Dat Fa - Baby Cham (Xtra Large)

A big head of steam built up behind this record with considerable dub plate exposure on UK radio in advance of release. The wait was worthwhile.

The tune begins with Baby Cham in conversation with anonymous bredren on the current iniquities of life in Jamaica 'Other day, place a run so nice. All of a sudden, pure shoot up, shoot up...'

Then a devastatingly minimal bass line kicks in, down at the speaker-testing low end of the frequency, Baby Cham turns the release valve on the rocket propellant and he's off:

DJ call mi name and dem a trace, wha dat fa

Yu nah haffi slander mi name around the place, wha dat fa

Certain man nah love see youth a try, wha dat fa

Certain man nah give ghetto youth a bly, wha dat fa

Mi nah get caught up inna dem rat race, wha dat fa

From other day yu cant look in mi eye, wha dat fa

See man a club and come a beg man Canei, wha dat fa

Mi hear say dem sit down and wish man fi die, wha dat fa

Mi nah trust no guy ca same way dem tell lie pon Frankie Sly, wha dat fa

 

Baby Cham's trademark has become a succession of blistering, self contained one liners delivered with his own brand of controlled, laconic ferocity. It was this instantly recognisable DJ approach which made Man And Man and The Return such monster hits. No one else is currently DJing in this way and as yet Baby Cham has spawned no imitators.

Unusual too in the Jamaican music industry, where a hot artist is usually milked for all he is worth, many months have gone by since the phenomenal The Return, Baby Cham's last recording. Equally unusual is the fact that only two other pieces on the aptly named Wicked rhythm exist, Hands Up from Chico and Step It Up from Baby Cham & Frankie Sly. The current Hard Drive rhythm, in contrast has so far generated two CD's worth of different cuts.

Baby Cham's lyrics, in the way they fuse teasing hints at unspecified private quarrels with critical comment on the state of Jamaica in general, is reminiscent of none other than the great Lee Perry, undisputed master of the musical vendetta. Like the Upsetter, Baby Cham is beginning to move out into unexplored musical territory of his own.