Dexta Daps, Bounty Killer and Cham bring back rub-a-dub dancehall with ‘Slow Motion’

Recording artistes Cham, Bounty Killer and Dexta Daps flexed their acting muscles in the production of a 16-minute short film directed by Dennis Brown, titled Slow Motion. The film accompanies their newest track produced by Madhouse Records’ mastermind Dave Kelly. The mini-movie, as well as the song, also named Slow Motion, explores the rub-a-dub dancehall style, with a purview of bringing more of that flavour to the space that is seemingly now saturated with more aggressive tunes.

Coupling the song with a movie was the idea of Jamaican Monique Blake of Swizz Beatz Productions and, according to Cham, he was quick to jump on it. “Monique was like ‘we need to do a mini-movie’ and I was like: ‘What do you mean? We are gonna act? Oh I’m Bond - James Bond’,” recounted a suit-clad Cham, who paired his suit with Alexander McQueen sneakers on Wednesday night for a more streetwear twist.

“The movie is basically pushing our culture, what we are about and what we love. It is basically showing the fans what we want to give them and the whole Jamaican public and the Caribbean and the rest of the world,” said Cham.

Certainly, bearing all the elements necessary to tell a true dancehall love story, Slow Motion is an entertaining display of the island’s music and party culture and, for Brown who directed the entire production, this is exactly the type of ingenuity the film space needs. “We have so many talented people locally that are just waiting for these opportunities to do films. We don’t have a lot of films locally and it is something that is important. We have so many stories to tell and just expressing and showing this essence of dancehall is something that a lot of people out in the world are looking for. I think it was a very good move and it is something that we should do a lot more of,” he said of pulling it all together.

But, what would the movie be without the tune? For Bounty Killer, this song Slow Motion is coming at just the right time. “Well, as we see in the music recently, the ladies have not been attended to, and we decided that we are going to do a song to get men and women to interact, because dancehall is a rub-a-dub ting. It was rub-a-dub then it turned dancehall, then the rub-a-dub came out of dancehall. The girls dem separate and the men separate. We decided that we want a song to get men and women to gyrate on each other. Then we said Dexta is a young act that came and made it his point of duty to tend to the ladies extensively, expensively. So we decided we want him to do the hook. Hook dem Dexta!” Bounty Killer shared.

Not wanting to pass up an opportunity to work with a few of dancehall’s biggest names, Dexta Daps quickly jumped on the track and, based on the praises sung to him by both Bounty Killer and Cham - he delivered exactly what they needed.“So mi get a phone call and it just seemed attractive to me. A three legends deh pon the phone one time a try convince me to do something great. Now me woulda be a stupid lickle yute to not get involved. So that is how I looked on it and said ‘do something great with your life, Dexta’. Mi a put in my work but me also a look on it as a great opportunity to be a part of something legendary,” Dexta Daps told The Gleaner.

Dexta Daps, Bounty Killer and Cham all gave props to Kelly, who was in-house for the screening on Wednesday night.

The ROK Hotel in downtown Kingston served as the perfect place to host the screening of the film and, much like the stars in the open-roof venue dazzled, so did the celebrities and industry insiders who walked the red carpet. Missing was Jada Kingdom, who played the leading lady in the film. Nevertheless, the night carried on seamlessly as those in attendance celebrated the work of those involved in the project, which also includes a music video.

aaliyah.cunningham@gleanerjm.com