Jamaica, Land We Love: The Verzuz Battle of All Battles
They can’t top this one…
The DJ warm-up…
The Jamaican national anthem to start…
The fashions…Fendi Blazer (Bounty), Gucci suit (Beenie)…
The Jamaican Police department trying to shut down the vibes…
Beenie Man shutting down the Jamaican police: “Do you really want to be that guy”…
The Jamaican prime minister watching the broadcast and enjoying it like everyone else…
The Rhianna shout out: “Ri ri…yuh see me me…and Bee-nie”
The freestyles…
The extensive music catalog…
Great WIFI…
Playing Bob Marley’s “One Love” to end the broadcast…
Last night was powerful and beautiful. I drank a couple of Dragon Stouts and along with 470k+ people, watched Jamaica masterfully execute one of the biggest entertainment moments of this year. It’s not a competition, but Jamaica won. All fans of dancehall culture and music won. It made this whole quarantine/coronavirus thing worth it. It was a reminder that greatness can occur even in uncertain times. Sometimes things that might seem negative have to occur in order for something amazing to come along. Just keep going.
OUTTAKES
I’d written this whole thing to give context about this battle, then realized that the bigger point was what I noted above. If you’d like some background on why this was so special, continue reading.
First, Beenie Man and Bounty Killer have had a longstanding feud that dates back to 1992. They clashed at Sting (a long-running Jamaican stage show) in 1993. After that, their music was littered with diss tracks in jest or over bigger issues (Beenie Man marrying Bounty’s longtime girlfriend in 2006).
In the name of protecting the culture and not promoting violence, they formally canceled their feud. They canceled it the first time in 1995, then again in 2014. So if you’re keeping track, that’s really a 20-year feud and now six years of consecutive peace.
Bounty Killer and Beenie Man are two highly successful and well-regarded dancehall artists. Beenie Man has had more international success but Bounty has long remained the people’s champ (I admit this even though I’m not a huge Bounty fan). This is as authentic as it comes.
The idea of clashing, battling, is a Jamaican dancehall construct. It’s lively, there are lots of jokes, dubs (this is important, but would need its own post), fashion, etc. All of that was on display tonight even if it was much more jovial than usual. Dancehall gave birth to hip hop and this is a huge part of the dancehall culture. It was only right that this was honored by the Verzuz platform.