An England Story: how Jamaica changed the voice of teenage Britain

Jamaican MCing - also known as toasting, chatting, and, confusingly, deejaying - has been around since the late Sixties. As Jamaica's DJs invested in ever grander and louder equipment, the sound systems sought to out do each other with both raw power and exclusive material. This led not only to the invention of the modern remix, but also the rise of the live MC, whose job was to enliven the crowd and insult rivals.

Jamaican expats in New York took these elements and turned them into something new: hip-hop. In Britain, though, their localisation was slower, more subtle, and truer to their roots

Jamaican MCing - also known as toasting, chatting, and, confusingly, deejaying - has been around since the late Sixties. As Jamaica's DJs invested in ever grander and louder equipment, the sound systems sought to outdo each other with both raw power and exclusive material. This led not only to the invention of the modern remix, but also the rise of the live MC, whose job was to enliven the crowd and insult rivals.

Jamaican expats in New York took these elements and turned them into something new: hip-hop. In Britain, though, their localisation was slower, more subtle, and truer to their roots.

American rap would muscle in and present music-making Britons of Caribbean descent with an alternative, angrier sound to aspire to, and a harder one to make their own. Rodney P - an MC who toured with Big Audio Dynamite when he was 15, and has since worked with Roots Manuva and Björk - found a way. In 1988, his London Posse released Money Mad, a record that crudely but brilliantly spliced rap, reggae and local observation into a gleefully noisy new sound that finally gave British rap an identity of its own.

Saxon Sound back in the day!

Tippa Irie Interview