Search - Various Artists :: Slackness In Dancehall, Vol. 1 : Love Punany Bad

While those "Parental Advisory--Explicit Lyrics" stickers have been around long enough to look fairly innocuous on the covers of our favorite CDs, the dirty songs they're meant to warn of still thrill us after thousands of years. No, rappers weren't the first to create rhymes that were naughty by nature--just ask Geoffrey Chaucer--but black music has enhanced the ribald tradition considerably. Though often implicit, sex talk has been present from the earliest blues (when Robert Johnson wanted someone to squeeze his lemon, he wasn't interested in making summertime drinks) to 1990s R&B (when H-Town talk about knocking the boots, it isn't to get the mud off their shoes). Jamaican music has always had an X-rated musical tradition of its own. In patois, off-color lyrics are called "slack," and Love Punany Bad, one of the many dancehall compilations released commercially in America, dedicates itself entirely to slackness. While you'll likely recognize some of the artists--from dancehall pioneer Yellowman to current superstar Shabba Ranks--you may never have been exposed to songs like "Wicked in Bed," "Slow Push It In," and "Panty Size." Never as explicit as the raps of Americans like 2 Live Crew, these toasts are more sex-positive than plain offensive. They don't all imply promiscuity (Verde Green's "Pum Pum Ration" encourages women to "let them know you only keep one man"); they aren't even all about sex (Yelloman's "I'm Gettin' Married" is more concerned with nuptials than conjugals). And the best ones, of course, leave something to the imagination: General Degree's well-punned calypsonian "Pianist" is the best priapic musical joke since AC/DC's ballroom boast. --Roni Sarig