Friday, May 8, 2009

I used to love this: Ragga Twins

Having rudely slagged off the Red Hot Chili Peppers last time, I'll pick a disc I'm going to be nice about. This time, it's Ragga Twins - Reggae Owes Me Money, an album as completely awesome now as it was in 1991.

I ended up paying almost £30 to get a CD of this album on eBay a few years ago, just cos I had to have it. And then last year they released a Best of the Ragga Twins compilation on Soul Jazz. Oh well. 

There's an astonishingly poor entry for them on Wikipedia. Good grief! These guys - rejoicing in the names of Flinty Badman and Deman Rocker - pretty much built jungle with their bare hands! Great voices, more or less incomprehensible to me at the time, but spilling over with energy and attitude. Wonderful, instinctive badness which mixed up hip hop, sound system, and techno. Check out Spliffhead:


And get a whole load of Hooligan 69. Just last week I was monumentally disappointed when it turned out the DJ was playing the Prince track, rather than the Twins' remix.



Oh Jesus! God bless YouTube for having this on it - it's the video for Hooligan 69 original version, the one above being the remix - look at those little dudes go!



A quick note to all the "youth" who are currently going completely NUTS for Caspa-style dubstep wobble: ferchrissakes do yourselves a favour and check out the Ragga Twins. It's what the stuff you love used to sound like before it was neutered and pumped full of Xanax.

Verdict: Guilty of wickedness in the 1st degree.

Sentence: Eternal everythingness! Free pass to do whatever, whenever. Bow down to the rulers!

All of which reminds me to get my hands on some Iration Steppas ASAP. 

1 comment:

ManuelDahm said...

Ah, what fond memories that brings back...was very much in love with hardcore/breakbeat after stumbling upon a Peshay tape in Camden ...played on the ghetto blaster of a black ghetto brother...and when the thing came over here, the Ragga Twins would come once in a while along ...