Dropping a second mix this week for your listening pleasure. Tony Conquerrah does an incredible raggae show each week on BBOX Radio so I’m honored that he was so down to contribute this mix to Third Looks. Over the years I’ve heard lots of raggae, dancehall and soca in Toronto as it was necessary for every DJ to have that in their crate due to the large Caribbean and West Indian population. There was definitely some nostalgic joints I heard in this mix, but even more exciting are the tracks I’m hearing for the first time in this hour long mix.
I asked Tony to intro the mix in his own words
“At the risk of sounding like a major nerd (which is what all DJ’s are anyway, let’s
face it), you can say that rap music has always been my first love.But I came up in the 90’s, during a time when dancehall was gun-butting its way into
the hip-hop party.I mean its always been there, ever since Kool Herc did his own take on Jamaican
sound systems up in the Bronx. And groups like Boogie Down Productions or Poor
Righteous Teachers also wore the island influence like a Dapper Dan leather suit.Yet it wasn’t until the 90’s that we saw the two cultures so nicely dovetailed
together. Super Cat’s “Ghetto Red Hot” video was getting regular burn on Yo! MTV
Raps. Crossover tunes like “Romantic Call” or “Murder She Wrote” were staples on Hot
97, not just on Flex’s show at night, but right out there in broad day. The
programming had a lot to do with the huge West Indian demographic here in the
tri-state area – but it was also becoming recognized on a nationwide scale – paving
the way for artists like Sean Paul or Shaggy in the latter part of the decade.While a lot of tunes in this mix were never “hits” in the US (although tunes like
“Action” most definitely were), they are straight bashment tunes, reflecting the
energy of the era when dancehall, or digital, or ragga, whatever you choose to call
it, really came into its own and branched off from the straight-ahead reggae stylee.
And like any good 90’s type of mix, I had to throw in some hip-hop blends for good
measure. ”You can find Tony Conquerrah on Soundcloud.
