Josie Wales (left) talks to Peter Metro during the Stur-Gav tribute to Sugar Minott show at the Mas Camp, Oxford Road, New Kingston on Saturday.

Saturday night's dancehall session at Mas Camp, Oxford Road, New Kingston, featured sound systems (Stur-Gav and Metromedia) that were founded long before the Sleng Teng rhythm sent Jamaican music digital in 1985.

And the performers were those who had come up in the days when working on a sound system before a live audience was the mandatory path to popularity, not recording songs in a studio and getting them airplayed. Among those showing their live dancehall roots to very good effect were General Trees, Charlie Chaplin and Little Twitch, all working on Stur-Gav under the watchful eye of U-Roy, who made intermittent contributions. After a detour into Metromedia, whose sound did not delight the audience, Bunny Wailer, Leroy Gibbons, Little John and Tristan Palmer working in tandem, Hopeton James and Jah Youth were standouts. Freddie McGreggor also delighted in the earlier stages.

belly-bouncing antics

Uncharacteristically, Josey Wales did not work on Stur-Gav at first and, when he took the microphone on Metromedia after Sky Juice opened up with belly-bouncing antics and Peter Metro delivered live, he went to some lengths to explain why. Josey Wales was more in MC than deejaying mode on Saturday night, initially irritating many on Metromedia (whose sound was deemed inadequate and Stur-Gav retook the dance's reins) and delighting on Stur-Gav.

Josey Wales made many references to contemporary dancehall matters, renaming Mavado 'Mafruado' and Vybz Kartel 'Vybz Kartoon'. But it was his deejaying about Lisa Hype's famous oral sex picture which the audience was most enthused about.

He explained lyrically that Lisa Hype "did a deejay a soun' inna yu bed one night, an make a mistake an' grab the wrong mike". He also comforted Lisa Hype with "a no yu picture a clone dem clone yu/Everybody have dem secret, dem cyaa stone yu".

There were other Gaza camp lyrics from Josey Wales, who said "Black Ryno fe go back a Gaza/Am memba sey Kartel a him father".

Peter Metro, who was on stage with Josey Wales at that time, went back to the Sting clash where Ninja Man had been beaten up, saying that if it was him he would go "wake up Jim Brown even though him a dead man gunshot a lick up like a Vietnam".

And Josey Wales seemed to consider the possibilities of such an on-stage confrontation, when he said "I wish they would try that with me".

Charlie Chaplin performs. - Winston Sill Photos

General trees

Sky Juice doing his thing on Metro Media during the Stur-Gav tribute to Sugar Minott show at the Mas Camp, Oxford Road, New Kingston on Saturday night.

U-Roy performs on his sound system at Stur-Gav's tribute to Sugar Minott.