Jamaican Halloween Spooktacular 2016 - Track Twelve - Yorkshire Ripper
In all my years doing the Jamaican Halloween Spooktacular and this blog in general, I never had such a hard time doing a write-up for one song. "Yorkshire Ripper" by deejay Lord Sassafrass is based on the very real and very vile crimes committed by serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, who was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper by the media in 1981, this one is straight-up vulgar. Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others and Sassa takes it to a ridiculous level. Believe me, I am well aware of the history of "slack" or offensive lyrics and subject matters that have been on the underbelly of Jamaican music since "Big Bamboo" and "Night Food" back in the mento era all the way though the embarrassingly sexually explicit and nauseatingly gory "gangsta" dancehall of latter years and I avoid featuring them on this blog. So you may be asking yourself, then why bother going there with this one? And to be honest with you, if it wasn't a reggae song about a serial killer which obviously fits with the theme I wouldn't have bothered. So instead of going into detail about the lyrics contained within "Yorkshire Ripper" I'll just let you hear them and interpret them for yourself. This one comes from Lord Sassafrass' 1982 album Horse Man Connection with the Aggrovators doing the backing, Bunny Lee doing the producing and Prince Jammy doing the mixing and released on the Starlight label. And I am going to leave it at that. Listener discretion is advised.
No comments:
Post a Comment