#RAM. BAM. BOOGIE!

[socaprince]

SOCA THERAPY - MAY 12, 2024

Soca Therapy Playlist

Sunday May 12th 2024

Making You Wine From 6-9pm on Flow 98.7fm Toronto

Long Live Soca (Dr. Jay Plate) - Voice

How Ah Livin (Muv Short Edit) - Farmer Nappy

Cloud 9 - Lyrikal

People (Ryan Sayeed's Stadium Status Intro) - Kes the Band

Ma Life (Thank You) - Motto

Greater - Dash

Middle Finger (Clean) - Boyzie

Let's Go Party - Problem Child

DNA (DJ Kevin Festival Intro Edit) - Mical Teja

Change The World - Ricardo Drue feat Drastic & Lily

Bam Bam (Remix) - Drastic & Shal Marshall

Guava Jam - Drastic

Ah Di Iron - Drastic (CANADIAN PREMIERE)

Soca Therapy - Lil Rick & King Bubba

Best Self - Nailah Blackman & Lyrikal

WDS - Aidol

Danger - Skinny Fabulous x Problem Child

Bandit Dance - Square One feat. Alison Hinds & Iwer George

Jammers - TC

Balapalampam - Keann

Heavy Bumper - Ricky Jai

Arima - God Father Asylum

Fete Is Fete - Bunji Garlin

Mom (Mama) - Ricky T & Ambi

Wassy - Full Blown

TOP 7 COUNTDOWN - Powered By The Soca Source

Top Songs Streamed On Radio Airplay in April for the continent of Oceania (primarily Australia & New Zealand)

7. Famalay - Skinny Fabulous x Machel Montano x Bunji Garlin

6. Big Fete - Father Philis

5. Splash - Patrice Roberts x Nessa Preppy

4. Night Train - Lord Nelson

3. Feeling It - Patrice Roberts x Kes

2. Dutty Flex - Kes

1. Turn Me On - Kevin Lyttle ft Maddzart

Mashup "When Ah Touchdown" - King Bubba FM

Whole Night (Ryan Sayeed's Intro) - King Bubba

Money Done (Fete Out Money) - Patrice Roberts

Inferno - Shraddah

All Ah Dem (Ryan Sayeed Intro) - Problem Child

Pop Ah Bottle (Travis World Remix) - Machel Montano

All Ahg We (DJ Shy Edit) - Peter Ram

Free Up Yuhself - Salty x Travis World

In The Center (BD Did It) - GBM Nutron x Farmer Nappy

Niceness - Kenny Montana

Beat Rum Bad - Wadicks x System32

Obsession - Mikey Mercer

Wifey - Farmer Nappy

Unforgettable (Best Friend Edit) - Kerwin Du Bois x Patrice Roberts

Cheers To Life - Voice

Woman - Fojo X Pahjo

PAN MOMENTS

(2004) Coffee Street (feat. Calypsociation) - Andy Narell

TANTY TUNE

(1995) Mother's Love - Sundar Popo

Mama - Lil Rick

Happy Mother's Day - Boogie B

Mama - Derrick Seales Feat Roy Cape All Stars

Cooking Good - Problem Child

Carnival Contract - Bunji Garlin

Road Friends - Nessa Preppy & Skinny Fabulous

Angels in the Sky - Shelly & Signal Band

Up & Up - Teddyson John

Anxiety - Patrice Roberts

Like Yuh Self (Riddim Master Edit) - Patrice Roberts x Machel Montano

Simply Everything - Patrice Roberts x Machel Montano

Band Of The Year - Patrice Roberts x Machel Montano

Rollin - Patrice Roberts x Machel Montano

NORTHERN PRESCRIPTION

De Last Time - Miss Cali

Devotion - Destra

Controller - Alison Hinds

Follow Dr. Jay @socaprince​ and @socatherapy

“Like” Dr. Jay on http://facebook.com/DrJayOnline

[outofcontextbreadwinners]

[cuppa-ale]

Oh man I was just thinking abt ur older art when u came on my dash! Esp the way you colored the bgs while leaving a white border around the character - bc i was just making smth Exactly like that! Ik I sent u a message complimenting your art years ago but it did stick with me a lot :-)

Aw!! My brain is a sausage so I don't even remember but Thank You!!! ToT

That's so cool! :0 Annd I think I know what you're talking about... was it something like this?: https://cuppa-ale.tumblr.com/post/146282996371/ram-bam-boogie

[t3nshiii]

the perfect kpop songs 4 summer.

dance the night away

power up

red flavor

touch my body

shake it

alcohol free

more & more

play

dumdi dumdi

rollin’

pool party (rollin right now)

happy happy

umpah umpah

tiki taka (99%)

bingle bangle

hello - joy

bubble pop!

fun!

what is love

party

holiday

dun dun dance

red

bungee (fall in love)

boogie up

nonstop

see sea

mr. e

with you

blue lemonade

sweet summer day

chillax

ho!

baby blue love

yummy summer

chi mat ba ram

pool party

navillera

bim bam bum

now or never

wow thing

dolphin

sunny summer

up!

flip that

pop!

tamed dashed

blueming

crown

woowoo

happy

why

eight

weekend

we go

forever young

yes or yes

fiesta

xoxo

loving u

stereotype

siesta

blue hour

strawberry moon

panorama

wa da da

shine

pporappippam

bop bop!

dreams come true

the feels

feel my rhythm

lovesick girls

dm

real love

as you wish

smiley

love dive

loveade

life’s too short

fearless

stay this way

no problem

candyfloss

love countdown

forever 1

bboom bboom

dumb dumb - rv

rookie

likey

candy pop

queendom

happiness

cheer up

ice cream cake

fancy

me gustas tu

russian roulette

after school

as if it’s your last

icy

heart attack - loona

peek a boo

zoo - rv

selfish

love cherry motion

our summer

fever - gfriend

mago

feel good (secret code)

nonstop

heart attack - aoa

love u

dumhdurum

don’t know what to do

very nice

drama

it’z summer

baam

asap

beautiful monster

[5-star-songs]

“Black Betty” -- RAM JAM

Depending on which histories you want to believe, the title refers either to a whip, a woman, a musket, a paddy wagon, or a bottle of whiskey. Since the lyric here says she had a child, that went blind, and the singer claims the child isn’t his, I��m pretty sure Ram Jam were going for the second interpretation, but none of the other possibilities make it any easier to justify a fifth star for this song, however much I loved it as a 12-year-old who hadn’t yet learned the word “problematic.”

Yet I gave it a fifth star when I first digitized it a decade or more ago, so rather than pretend I didn’t, I might as well try to figure out why. It’s tempting to focus solely on the music, as the disco beat coupled with hard rock guitars spitting out boogie riffs is a combination so perfectly designed to hijack our lizard brains and get our hips swaying involuntarily that I’m surprised so few people ever tried to mimic that approach. The band’s anything-that’ll-make-em-move ethos even includes a little hoedown two minutes into the tune, and their commercial aspirations are multiplied by the radio-ready sheen the arrangement gets from bubblegum producers Kasenetz and Katz, who were also responsible for overly sugary hits such as “Yummy Yummy Yummy.”

But we can’t separate the music from the lyric, especially the hypnotically repeating “bam-a-lam.” The track is at its strongest when it’s just kick drum, hi-hat and bam-a-lams -- which is also when it’s closest to the folk song’s origins, as in this recording of Lead Belly singing it in 1939 (on the Ram Jam LP I bought in 1977, H. Ledbetter was credited as the composer, though others recorded it before him).

Borrowing across cultures and eras is a critical component of art, so I don’t consider such appropriation an inherently criminal act. I remember an odd conversation I had once with a Pitchfork writer who’s about fifteen years younger than I am. I mentioned an SF band called Two Gallants, and she sniffed, “I don’t like them. They sang a song from the perspective of a slave.” I said that struck me as a misguided reason not to like a band -- attack them for doing the job poorly, if you think they did, but don’t forbid them from making the attempt. And that’s pretty much my position today: appropriate away, but if you do, please have a better reason than, “it just looked/sounded so cool.”

So I wish that 52-year-old me could endorse Ram Jam’s effort to modernize an old Lead Belly tune, and insist that 12-year-old me was right to love this song unconditionally. But I can’t, because when Ram Jam sing about someone they call Black Betty, they’re not making a brave artistic choice to adopt someone else’s perspective, they’re just being crass -- if I ever had any doubts about that, the singer’s leer when he sings, “she’s shaking that thing” in the video above erased them. 

The fact that the music is so irresistible doesn’t make it forgivable.