Rodigan puts forth Fabriclive 54

Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer

Anyone familiar with British disc jockey/sound system operator David Rodigan knows nothing excites him more than rocking a dancehall with hardcore reggae beats. That is the objective of his latest project.

Fabriclive 54 compilation is a 21-track set of hardcore dancehall.

It was produced by the 59-year-old Rodigan for the hugely popular Fabric club in London where he has played during the past two years.

Fabric is one of the main arenas for dubstep, an electronic derivative of dub that emerged from London's underground 10 years ago. Rodigan says Fabriclive 54 gave him an opportunity to reach out to dubstep's youthful fans.

"The audience age for dubstep is quite young, 16 to 20, so for many, my vintage dub and reggae is a new experience," he told The Gleaner last week.

"The fact that they like dubstep means that they will probably like real bass-heavy reggae and dubwise."

Dancehall Classics

Some of the songs on Fabriclive 54 are dancehall classics. These include Augustus Pablo's King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown and Ring The Alarm by Tenor Saw, a must-have for sound system operators.

Others are of more recent vintage, such as Shaggy's Church Heathen, Ghetto Story by Cham and Can You Play Some More from Beres Hammond.

Rodigan said he was careful to select diverse songs to appeal to the Fabric throng, hence the inclusion of August Town by Etana, Alborosie's Kingston Town and Live Mi Life by Romain Virgo.

"It does not contain any obvious old school pop-reggae crossover hits as they have been overused and they would not be appropriate for the typical Fabric club and record label audience," he explained.

Like house, drum and bass and techno before it, dubstep has taken over the London club scene. Fabric has seized on its popularity by releasing mix albums which rock dancehalls as far away as Australia and New Zealand where dubstep has also caught on.

Rodigan has embraced dubstep as enthusiastically as he did rocksteady, roots-reggae, dub and dancehall. His Fabric playlist offers vintage mixes by dub genius Osbourne 'King Tubby' Ruddock to contemporary Jamaican producers.

While he spins the latest Jamaican hits at Fabric and during his long-running show on London's Kiss FM, Rodigan says he is not entirely thrilled with many of the productions coming out of Jamaica.

"They seem to be lacking in originality and substance. It seems the young Jamaican producers and rhythm makers are obsessed with emulating urban America with hip hop and R&B beats," he said. "This is not appealing to me."

David Rodigan has been a student of Jamaican popular music since the late 1960s. During countless visits to Jamaica, he befriended dub legends King Tubby and Pablo, and was largely responsible for breaking dancehall music in Britain during the 1980s.

His 'clashes' with various sound systems and disc jockey Barry 'Barry G' Gordon of the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation drew huge crowds, especially in the 1980s when dancehall began moving to the mainstream.

The Fabric club has been a bastion of edgy dance music since it was launched 11 years ago. In 2009 and 2010, it was voted among the world's top 100 clubs by the respected DJ Magazine.