Friday, October 17 - Club Tobago in Queens got a taste of dancehall reggae history on Friday, September 26th when legendary singer Johnny Osbourne and “The Stopper” b.k.a Cutty Ranks touched down to nice up the venue in a fashion only two such veterans could manage.

Nowadayzdancehall.com got to Club Tobago about 45 minutes before showtime, and mek I tell yuh…pure vibes now people, pure vibes. A good crowd of 200 or so, mostly very pretty Trinidadian and Guyanese of East Indian persuasion milled about Tobago’s roomy, relaxed interior. The men in the place were straight girl-watching and there was no shortage of sights. Whenever we slide over to Club Tobago it is consistently peaceful and absolutely swimming with good-looking party-people.

While everyone was settling into the bass-pulse filled atmosphere, the opening act {ARTIST X} of Brooklyn hit the microphone with a fifteen minute verbal lashing, swinging back and forth between staccato dee-jaying and melodic chanting leaving the crowd to curiously trace his movements as he paced around on stage.

It was not too soon after that a godfather of the early movement of dancehall singers strolled onto the stage and the crowd buzzed in recognition of the veteran balladeer, Mr. Johnny Osbourne. He wasted no time heating up the room with a major sample of his historic contribution to the music, with his smash “Ice Cream Love” and the infamous sound-clash destroying dub-plate version “Ice Cream Sound”. He had the crowd instantly immersed in his flow as he went into the cut “Playing In The Ghetto” a tune that was made when much of the rude boys and rudestresses in the audience were just born, but they knew the shot word for word indicating their approval with all manners of gun-finger salutes and skanking. He flattened down Tobago when the classic rumble of “Buddah Bye” rolled through the venue. Mr.Osbourne had proved beyond a doubt that he is no joke, still rockin at fifty-plus years of age. Gwaan faddah!

Everyone got taste of the vintage singing style of Johnny Osbourne. Now it was time for classic “gun pon target” lyrics of “The Bomber” , a.k.a “The Original Butcher” , Mr. Hand Grenade himself, “The Stopper” Cutty Ranks. I got to tell you from now, not many of the contemporary deejays can hold Cutty. He’s for real, not a Happy Meal. He put down a non-stop fifty-minute set which minced his biggest hits from back in the day with some new freestyles (one most impressive on the “Showtime” riddim; he blasted off for four minutes non-stop) and other new material.

Cutty displayed pure lyrical fitness as he bombarded the Tobago massive with most of his classics. The young, involved audience gave big forwards for hits like “The Stopper”, “Who Seh Mi Done”, “Retreat”, and “Grizzle” . He got to the softer side of things by performing his half of “Any Lover Mi Want” a collaboration he recorded with Beres Hammond. None of the moving hips told a lie during this song; Pepper-hot, fellas! He also did his portion of another powerful collabo, which was originally recorded with Barrington Levy, called “Dancehall Rock” which received roaring approval. Of course he kept the place revved up in between these tunes with standards like “Limb by Limb” and “Wait Deh Man”. Cutty kept coming lyric after lyric, displaying his rapid-fire, streetsweeper style fusillade of wordplay. Like the lyrics to one of his songs proclaim, he was like a “new machine with plenty magazine”. Cutty proved his skill and power have not diminished in his two decades long career as a verbal assassin.

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