Day 175 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Yellowman - Sensemilla

We're gonna wrap up the week by giving King Yellowman his turn to drop some ganja lyrics on the Full Up riddim.  This one is called "Sensemilla" and was produced by Gussie Clarke and released in 1982 on his Gussie's 80's label.  It's quiet obvious in '82 there was a huge surge in recordings of ganja tunes and the majority of them were riding Full Up... it probably had a lot to do with the success of the Mighty Diamonds "Pass The Kouchie" recorded and released in 1981 and eventually culminated in the sanitized pop hit "Pass The Dutchie" by the group Musical Youth the following year.  The way I see it, the Jamaican music industry was still desperately seeing to find an inroad to international pop success and they wanted to ride the coattails of a charted reggae hit by repackaging Full Up as quick as they could.  I have even read that Gussie Clarke's "Gussie's 80's" label attempted to come off slicker and more professional than other Jamaican exports at the time in an effort to appeal to international tastes at the time.  Unfortunately I don't think the world quite "got" the Jamaican tradition of reusing riddims and the heap of weed-centric deejay takes produced in hopes of capturing the fickle pop listeners never got traction... oh well, their loss.  I love the introduction to the tune with the faux breaking news report and the keeping with the journalistic theme when some typewriter effects are throw in throughout, most notably when the version starts to roll!  A massive Yellowman classic from the early days of his reign as DJ King!  Dig it!