Fabriclive 47: Toddla T

Sheffield producer Toddla T's Electro-Dancehall rhythms & Dj set for London super-club Fabric. Mix of styles all within a larger dancehall context. A few FCCs scattered around ( 6, 9 ) and some standard dancehall content, e.g. pum pum etc.
Picks: 4, 5, 7, 8, 14


1. Skanking digi-dancehall track about going to clubbing in NY looking for pum pum.
2. UK-rapper Roots Manuva, same digi-dancehall vibe, nice bass ostinato, sparse sonar echoes, jungle style filtered hats enter as Toddla brings in track 3, blending, selecting.
3. Really a continuation of track 2, can fade out when the northern voice enters with "keep jumping you bastards". Short track, not really an entity in itself.
4. ***Dutty Dutty. Female patois vocals. Wicked bassline, more midrangey dubstep wobble bass enters eventually, but this is a banger.
5. Rave klaxon denotes this as the next track but really a continuation. Sighing midrange "woomphs". Frenzied accelaration at the end but cool wobbles. Dutty!
6. UK grime MC Bashy meditates on street life, references to drug dealing etc, he does say "shit" once. Diva vocals "woahahahah life", cool dancehall backbone.
7. ***Oldskool rave style staccato stabs, cool drop into an amen break, all the jungle cliches e.g. euphoric vocals, funky congas enter. Really cool in dancehall context. Roller.
8. ***Toddla T shows off his mixing. Dancehall MCing on top: "shake it shake it c'mon get naked naked". Features riddims by UK Funky producers including Lil Silva amongst others. Almost reggaeton style boom bap rhythms that gives the genre its name Funky. Good introduction to the Funky genre.
9. Frenetic dancehall riddim, Roots Manuva plus female vocalist, "it's clear it's sunny". Might want to skip over the first 15 seconds because the Newham Generals talk over the intro to tell you about what a "big boy Dj" Toddla T, and it's a bit uneccessary. 50 seconds before the end someone also tells you that its "fooking hard mate". Thanks for that.
10. Remix of UK indie artist Jack Penate. Pretty tame.
11. MC chatting up the mic at the start, can skip over the first 40 seconds probably. Another remix of a standard UK indie outfit with silly northern accents but the duttier bassline makes this more rewarding, but pretty silly, though this is part of Toddla T's appeal innit.
12. Garage style riddims and cut up choppy vocals. Good garage cliches if you are curious about the style e.g. Todd Edwards.
13. Oldskool reece bass & cliches. It weaves a chopped up "funk" word into the beat, it does sound a bit like "fuck" but it isn't so whatever. Short track moves into track 14 for 14 seconds.
14. Benjamin Zephaniah introduces himself and bigs up Toddla T at the start around 14 seconds in, can skip over this, starts properly at 26 seconds. Rising background vocal oohs. Insistent bassline propulsion, cool claps, spoken word. Long track. Vibezin'.

--- Locky