The Heatwave's Top Ten Dancehall Tracks of the Decade

Celebrating double digits this year, The Heatwave have been the finest purveyors of dancehall and bashment music since 2003. Driven by their devotion to bringing Caribbean culture to masses, the lads Gabriel, Benjamin D and Rubi Dan have been promoting and playing some of the biggest and baddest tunes for ten years, their weekly Hot Wuk parties having now become one of the staple week day club nights in the capital. They’ve been backed by some of the biggest producers and artists in the game, from Sticky to Toddla T, and release podcasts, refixes and special cuts pon de regular. We got Gabriel to have a little reminisce about the rise of Heatwave, and what dancehall and bashment mean to UK culture.

Noisey: Happy tenth birthday Heatwave! Do you think the popularity of dancehall as a genre has grown in the last decade?

Gabriel: I think dancehall has definitely risen in popularity as Heatwave has grown. Without being immodest, I think it’s grown partly because of what we push. Part of it is cyclical, it comes in waves. Dancehall was huge in the 90s, then it kind of dipped, then it came back with Sean Paul in 2003, which is the year Heatwave started. Since then we haven’t just ridden that wave, we’ve helped to create it, especially since Hot Wuk started in 2009. It’s really picked up since then.

Has the demographic of people who come to nights changed too?

When we first started in 2003, one of the things I thought was significant about dancehall was that it felt like if you were white and English, it was difficult. I remember talking to alot of people when we started who were like “how are you a dancehall DJ and you’re white?”. No one really says that anymore. It’s not a question. It’s more “oh, cool, whatever”. It’s not surprising to people. Those barriers are coming down over time. People don’t really see the world like that, they have mixed families and mixed friends. It doesn’t work in those separate little boxes. Everyone’s so mixed and so comfortable now. If you grew up in London, Jamaican culture is all around you. The influence of dancehall is all around you, from jungle, garage, grime, dubstep and funky house. The slang, the fashion, if you’re from London, it’s your thing. That’s what’s different from 20 years ago.

Where do you place dancehall and bashment in UK music culture? Where do you think it belongs?

There’s so much dancehall being referenced in British pop music, from “My Boy Lollipop”, “The Israelites”, Althea and Donna, Sister Nancy, JUNGLE, Lily Allen, and Boy George. But, at the same time, I think there’s something amazing about it being outside of the mainstream, having the space to do what it wants, to break certain taboos. When you go somewhere like the BBC, it’s really noticeable that there are some things that you can’t do and you can’t say. I mean, cool. That’s good that you can’t promote certain types of behaviour, but I am actually a bit like “what’s wrong with a bit of sex, and a bit of smoking weed?” That stuff is not something that I think is wrong. I remember talking to an artist, and he was saying an analogy of reggae is like smoking weed. It should be illegal, and it’s almost good that it’s like that. You have to find it, it’s not in the shops, and only people who really want to hear about it can get hold of it.

Preach Gabriel. Here's the Heatwave's Top Ten Dancehall Tunes of 2003-2012

There are so many incredible dancehall tunes from the last ten years, we could pick ten top tens featuring ten different artists and it would probably only take about ten minutes.

Lady Saw - "Man A Di Least" (2003)

Beenie Man and Cham had already had hits on the Fiesta riddim when Lady Saw jumped on it, but that wasn't stopping her and this one quickly became a favourite for any dancehall selectors. Women LOVE this song and we all know that women run the dancehall.

Sean Paul - "We Be Burnin" (2004)

Catchy, melodious, radio-friendly dancehall that makes clubs go wild and always provokes huge female singalongs when we play it. We could be talking about pretty much any Sean Paul tune!

Leftside & Esco - "Tuck In Yu Belly" (2005)