This year the Notting Hill Carnival will be held on the 29th and 30th August. It’s probably the best street festival in Europe and one of the largest in the world. The first day is known as the Children’s Carnival, this means that the Carnival Floats will be out in force bumping out Soca and Reggae music whilst being tailed by men and women in elaborate outfits that always seem to be a street wide, a lamp post high and covered in every colour of sequin. Day one is a great spectacle for the families and kids, if you find the right spot you and your young’uns could happily dance along with the other party goers. But day two of the Carnival is a different animal altogether. Listen up: leave those kids at home! The focus on the day will shift from the attractive Floats to the Sound Systems aka the Sounds. These are basically free outdoor night clubs and just like real night clubs you will find no two Sounds the same with some way better than others. Recommendations: If you’re the young and rowdy type check out Rampage, which is arguably the most popular Sound each year. Every year they pull out the big acts and play the exclusive tunes. But my personal favourite is Norman Jay’s Good Times. (Sir) Norman Jay always pulls in a good vibe and good people with the finest selection of music by a mile.
Why am I giving you a crash course on the Notting Hill Carnival? Well, blame it on Warrior One’s new EP Bad Like Jimmy Cliff. After my first listen of the EP, I felt the need to find a street party and bruk out like my feet wanted to escape my shoes. Warrior One are a London based duo that are fusing UK Funky with Jamaican Bashment music. Now I am not the biggest fan of Bashment or UK Funky, I think UK Funky is a scene (with a terrible name) still trying to find its legs and while Bashment has some excellent moments, it is too one dimensional for my liking. Somehow Warrior One found a way to mix both and produce an excellent EP.
The standout track off the EP is the title track, Bad Like Jimmy Cliff. The opening seconds of the track features NinjaMan, one of the most notorious thugs in Dancehall music, talking about his childhood admiration for the Jimmy Cliff’s Gangster in the film, The Harder They Come. What comes after this speech is one of the most unrepentant bass lines I heard in a long, long time. The construction of this tune is ridiculously simple: a few trumpet flares, a basic hi hat and bass drum with the repeated NinjaMan line but when you add all these elements with that bass line you end up something special.
The whole EP is a great first effort from Warrior One. It’s no easy feat taking mainstays from Bashment (The album features a Bashment MC’s, raid sirens, the ‘pull up’s, Bashment bass lines and drum patterns) to transpose them to the time signature of UK Funky. It’s this uniqueness that makes this EP readymade for upcoming Notting Hill Carnival, especially for day two. It’s as danceable as any UK Funky tune and doesn’t require knowledge of certain dance moves like Bashment music. Also every song on the EP is designed to be played at Carnival-level volumes aka AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE!! I recommend you cop the EP (and a glass of Wray and Nephew’s rum with plenty of ice) and do the same.
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