Waste Mail: Issue 002 🇯🇲 Jamaica Special

Presenting 8 hours (!) of music discovered during a recent trip to JA

Jan 31, 2023

Welcome to the second issue of Waste Mail, the music mailer curated by Tropical Waste.

A very recent trip to Jamaica inspires this one. It’s written as an excuse to stay cocooned in the rampant, unending basslines of the island as well as to let you know what’s being played on the ground and in the dance right now.

Reggae and all of its evolutions are omnipresent in Jamaica. The music is constant, loud and, most of the time, brand new. This is no surprise but the novelty of coming across pumping low-end and the latest riddim science in the most unlikely of locations never gets old. Especially to those visiting from frigid little countries where music is sanctioned to the point where its pulse often goes cold.

Speakers are strung up in bars, shops, restaurants; on front porches, the top of cars and the back of bikes; you’ll find stacks on the beach, at shopping mall car parks and in dusty yards in picturesque countryside villages. There’s music around every corner, so it feels like the best way to contextualise 8 hours of Shazams is to situate the tracks in the places that they were heard. Part playlist, part diary, all put together in the spirit of pure, wide-eared music discovery.

Below are some highlights and you can browse the full, 150-track Jamaica playlist here. The newer releases have also been placed into our main playlist, the Waste List.

And a quick announcement before we continue: The Tropical Waste party returns to London on Friday Feb 24. Grab tickets here and we’ll see you down the front.

Enjoy ✨

A balcony, Montego Bay 🌅

First night in Jamaica and we’re listening to the street sounds that are being launched into our room from the road below. We’re staying just off Mobay’s Hip Strip, a long stretch that boasts bars, clubs and restaurants (you’ll find some of the country’s best jerk here) and blasts of white sand beach.

Every so often a car whips toward the Strip, its souped-up system walloping the sound of dancehall’s current elite. Hearing tracks by Masicka, whose ‘438’ album recently smashed 100 million streams, and Skeng, the young dancehall artist with a fierce track record, will become a regular occurrence, as will going to sleep surrounded by the warm embrace of low-end frequencies.

Chronic Law ‘Watch Man’ Watch
Iwaata ‘Clip Tall’ Watch
Masicka ‘Drug Lawd’ Watch
Skeng ‘Gvnman Shift’ Watch
Byron Messia ‘12am Freestyle’ Watch

Up in the hills, Kingston 🌌

A couple of the many, many storylines in the reggae universe burst into technicolour as we arrive into Kingston for the first time. We’re here to go to Dub Club, the legendary Sunday session that’s keeping the spirit of dub and roots alive in the capital (Dubwise Cafe is another outpost). It takes place up in Jack’s Hill, one of the mountains that cradle the city and its port (up the road from the Dub Club compound lies Strawberry Hill, the residence where Bob Marley sought refuge after being shot in ‘76.)

It’s an idyllic setting, with sweeping, aerial views of Kingston at night. Dub Club founder Gabre Selassie plays an extended set dedicated to Garnett Silk, the prolific young reggae singer who died in 1994 while trying to save his mother from a house fire. He spins Silk’s ‘Everything I’ve Got’, voiced on the brilliant ‘Movie Star’ riddim in 1992 (itself a version of Delroy Wilson’s ‘I Don’t Know Why’ from 1971). As a bonfire crackles away and the moon shines down through the trees that encapsulate the Dub Club dancefloor, Gabre seems to open up a vibration that stays with us for the rest of the trip, because we hear Garnett Silk and the ‘Movie Star’ riddim throughout the rest of our journey.

Another artist who trails us is Burna Boy, who’s making his Jamaican debut on the same night across town at the national stadium. The show is the talk of the island: we hear it advertised on the radio, newspapers splash with Popcaan’s furious reaction to technical issues during his support set and clips of the gig and elated fans are still being shown on national TV well over a week after. It’s Burna Boy Mania and we hear ‘Last Last’, ‘It’s Plenty’ and ‘Ye’ constantly, along with big tracks from Tems, Runtown, Wizkid and Rema. It seems as if afrobeats is the island’s second genre. “This feels like a homecoming,” Burna Boy tells the crowd during the show. “This feels like a long-lost brother coming to see his long-lost brothers and sisters.”

Delroy Wilson ‘I Don’t Know Why’ Listen
Wayne Wonder ‘Movie Star’ Listen
Garnett Silk ‘Everything I’ve Got’ Listen
Burna Boy ‘ Last Last’ Watch
Burna Boy ‘It’s Plenty’ Listen
Pheelz feat BNXN ‘Finesse’ Watch
Rema ‘Calm Down’ Watch

Dance routines at the bar, Long Bay 🐚

Long Bay is a mile of rugged beach on Jamaica’s north east coast, with a few food stops and low-key bars dotted along its shore. We post up at one of the bars and get chatting to Asoya, who’s running the island’s latest viral tracks through a massive boombox in the corner. In an instant she’s showing us how to do the newest dance routines for bangers like ‘Foot’ and the penny drops that all you need to start a party in Jamaica is a bluetooth connection.

Squash ‘Foot’ Watch
Laa Lee & Cristale ‘Bong Bing’ Watch
Ding Dong ‘Bounce’ Watch
Laa Lee ‘Floating’ Watch
Jeff Fullyauto ‘Jericho’ Watch

Dancehall sunset, Great Bay 🦀

Everyone’s a selector and everyone’s playing new music from coast to coast. Another epiphany awaits at Great Bay in the south west of the island when we meet the owner of a guesthouse who also runs a little bar out of a bamboo hut on the water’s edge. He’s spinning CD-Rs through a punchy, modern Panasonic hifi that sounds like it was custom made to play reggae music. As the sun dips and starts to melt toward the horizon, his selection turns to a medley of brand new, introspective dancehall and reggae revival tracks, all released within the last year.

Shane O ‘Dark Room’ Watch
10tik feat Yaksta ‘Freedom’ Watch
Yaksta ‘Assets (Fowl Coop)’ Listen
Journey ‘450’ Watch
Silk Boss ‘Surgery’ Watch

Three nights out in a row, Kingston 🥵

There’s a party every night of the week in Kingston and our second visit to the city is to go to Uptown Mondays, Boasy Tuesdays and Weddy Weddy Wednesday. These run weekly without fail and are all based in the same area of Constant Spring Road, a busy highway that cuts right through the center of the city. Each has its own upbeat atmosphere with DJs committed to playing the newest in dancehall, unless you arrive before midnight, when you’ll be treated to a warm up that includes anything from Chic to Celine Dion to the Backstreet Boys.

Hundreds of ravers turn up to flex in pristine outfits, toast to their friends and soak up cutting-edge music (these parties are where we catch the most under-the-radar track IDs). Crews of dancers lay down routines in the center of the action and the towering systems are tuned to perfection, making each futuristic riddim sound as if it’s being beamed in from outer space.

Aktive ‘Bag A Gyal’ Watch
Rugged Boss ‘1 Boss’ Watch
1Biggs Don ‘Bwoii Affi’ Watch
Marcy Chin ‘Gimme More’ Watch
Kash Promise Move ‘Bandulu’ Watch

The lawn of Jack Sprat’s, Treasure Beach 🏝

Hearing the freshest dancehall through mammoth speakers is an addictive pursuit so the sight and sound of three juggernaut stacks on New Year’s Eve sets the buzz off again. We’re on the lawn of Jack Sprat’s, a beach restaurant in Treasure Beach, a laid-back village long known as the retreat of rastas and hippies where life slows all the way down. It’s a family affair and everyone’s out, from kids in their New Year’s best to teenagers on a wave to uncles and aunties letting loose. Although we’re as country as it gets, the community’s love of loud, current music remains undiminished. The lead up to midnight features crowd-pleasers like ‘Clarks’, ‘Rum & Red Bull’ and ‘Heads High’ while the first few hours of the New Year see a frenetic blend of fresh dancehall that draws gun fingers, wining and dance routines in abandon.

Masicka ‘Umbrella’ Watch
Teejay ‘From Rags To Riches’ Watch
Chronic Law & KevStar ‘Government’ Listen
Valiant ‘Dunce Cheque’ Listen
Deno Crazy & 450 ‘Thunda’ Watch

New Year’s Eve in the car park, Treasure Beach 🔊

Sore heads are revived in the car park of a local bar in the middle of the village. Like moths to a flame, we follow a booming bassline to find a dude playing tunes off an iPad and through a powerful, bottom-heavy speakerbox on top of his whip (we see similar mobile set-ups on roadsides up in the villages of the Blue Mountains and on the roadside in Port Antonio). He warms things with classic reggae before moving into bouncing dancehall bangers that are surely keeping everyone in the vicinity awake. When we get into bed, the low-end is making the windows of our room shake; the music flows free-range, existing without constraint (or a noise complaint). We drift off on bass for the final time…

John Holt ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’ Listen
Gregory Isaacs ‘Soon Forward’ Listen
Vybz Kartel ‘Fever’ Listen
Bugle & Lady Saw ‘Infidelity’ Listen
Bayka ‘Sinna Life’ Listen

With love from Tropical Waste ✌️

Our party returns 💖 Sarra Wild, k means and Hermeneia on the buttons 🔥 Patch D. Keyes on the art 🎨 Cutting-edge club music all night long - tickets here