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It's around 12:30 as we enter the dance & did the usual skribble down notes of upcoming events on the club wall, got bad up from security for surety for not being on the list [they don't know I'm a superstar], got it all cleared up & then bounced into the venue. Everyone was bouncing to the vibes of Diamond Star who were doing real well for a new sound. U could tell the female sound was bitter for just being forced to play early warm, because almost every speech Ms Maddem made was, "Is only Battyman fight out female sound! "Dem seh Diamond Star nuh read 4 Atlanta Fully Loaded, wah wi ah tell dem Sweetness!" "Some man ah carry wi name seh wi a woman and wi caan clash, but hear dis!" As I said bitter, but they did very well around the controls for their set. Made my rounds, took couple pictures, "My yute wah yuh ah tek mi pictcha fah, delete dat bumbocl@@t!", "Yes sir" wimpers and runs away! It was now 1:30 and Diamond Star was still playing, never skipped a beat and vibes'd up the crowd. Some may have said they played out tunes that should have been left for the clash, but they are a new sound so that will come with experience and a deeper selection of tunes etc. They Fully done di place with the new tunes they played, some hip hop and even some conscious vibes, Surprised a lot of people who were forwarding and banging on walls when they played a couple of their dubs and a couple of Streetlife dubs. A for Effort, I Say, Jolly well done, Bravo young homies!
"5 minutes till clash start!" So I take my usual position in the front of the stage to capture the best footage for you the great people of AtlantaReggae.com. The host Mega Banton comes on to do the proper officiating etc. "Slow Down, you know this is a show down!", "Atlanta Fully Loaded is Overloaded, Slow Down!" good vibes from Mega. The sounds picked their numbers, King AP to play 1st, Textra to play #2, wait, bad man don't play #2, so yes they played AFTER King Apocalypse. King Eternity 3rd, Supreme 4th, Highlanda 5th and Dajavoo to play in the 6th position. The crowd was boiling with anticipation, expectations were high, horns were sounding, whistles were blowing, wah is really Fully Loaded dis! Before they played I had to tell the "event coordinators", to allow Mega to explain the rules to the people. Didn't do much explaining so into the "45 Round we go, oh sound boy don't you move slow!" 45 Round begins with AP taking the stage, with Lion Chef @ the wheels and his brother Ized with "Michelle" & the rest of the crew linin up the ammo to done di place. Ized mek some speeches to get it out of the way about the "Pork head dread dem", so the competitors couldn't use dat against dem. Some good foundation selections were played, nuff running up and down on the stage from Ized, but the crowd for some reason wasn't feeling the same energy. I guess for a 45 shoot out round the tunes were very normal. Their round finishes with some new tunes, some dancing tunes and then they hand it over to Textra.
"Textra, you know you gonna give dem something extra!" as Mega introduces them to the stage. As Brown took the stage and Negus sekkle the wheels of steel, they went straight into their set. Must say, some really heavy forwards, nuff whistles, horns, shouting, screaming, Club Aquarium POP DOWN. The played more like how I expected, cut and go through the tunes to keep people hype with some good intros. Textra's biggest forward for the night I believe was when Brown made the speech, "Yeow dem seh a 45 Round ... 45 deh yah fi kill nuff sound, but you know wah me come fi kill dem wid, Negus Run Tune!!!!" then the tune drops in ... "Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting!!!" ... pullll uuupppppp! Aquarium pop down. Their round finished well and they passed it over to Mega. At this point of course they were in the lead and the crowd was salivating. "Slow Down, King Eternity, you know you come to kill the fraternity!" ... without much long talking King Eternity comes on and bwoy the place was in a frenzy. Their experience in clashes did play a big part as they followed the same formula as Textra did, dropping tunes quickly, making big speeches and commanding the presence of the stage, with their two wing men in tow and vibesing up the crowd. Ahhh 2 good round back to back, this is what we all expected from Atlanta Fully Loaded. from start to finish, save 3 of their last tunes, Eternity done di place and I would have to say it was between them and Textra at this early stage in the race. On to Supreme's round.
Supreme comes in and starts to blaze a serious fire. *stick a pin* Here we go into an ongoing problem in the clash market, where more youngsters are coming out and only want to hear pon di river and don't know foundation tunes. "remove pin" ... "Carpenter Carpenter, how do you do!!!" ... barely any forwards, shocked and apauled, Supreme would play some heavy foundation tunes that in an ideal clash arena would get some serious forwards, but for a young and growing clash arena, went over the heads of the youngsters in Aquarium. Their round would continue like this until they ran some hip hop and vibez up the place again. 5th came Highlanda, bow it was sticky on them, there were some technical difficulties in their round which hurt them, then their most devastating point came when they played back "War start again, bad man name dem a call up, pass mi mi tall up tall up!", some heavy boos, I was like rahtid! Then Mega came on and was like "People, unnuh nuh fi boo dem, just mek dem do dem ting!" Then Pec from Highlanda got back the michelle and said, "Mega, no worries man, you know this is Top Rated Highlanda!" ... "sitck another pin", Now here's my thing, if you are going to be "Top Rated" you have to earn that title from the people, you cannot dub yourself that, which made it stickier for them because you know Caribbean people resent self proclaimed superstars. "remove pin", so heavy boos, some stickin and they bow out gracefully conceding they lost the 45 round and "Wi going to give it to dem in the Dub round, watch Atlanta!"
"Davajoo you know you not going to screw" ... well he Mega never said that, but I can't remember his line for Dajavoo. "I'm Stoka, di girls dem love my Stroka, that's Ragga P, my friend for life, I will never sleep with his wife!" and they go into playing some regular tunes which did not catch many forwards. The they started to mix it up to the delight of the crowd, playing some new tunes. This is where Ragga P jump off the turn table "Yeow Mi Deh Yah to, big up the whole Dajavoo crew, Mix Master David, Father Stulups & Super Barry! Sometimes you need to just know where you nah do nothing and move on!" Funny thing was after he went back on and start play some new tunes the crowd went crazy. They went crazier when Stoka made a speech "Yeow Mi love woman, suh mi nuh know why dem fight out Diamond Star outa di clash. All ah di man dem, if yuh love Pum Pum seh Pum Pum, Unnu Seh PUM PUM!!" Place pop down, people running up and down the stage, I must say very impressive for a round that seemed to not have been going nowhere. They finish their round in the same Defenders of the Pum Pum stance and handed it over to Mega. Overall it was a well done 45 round, had some very high and very low points, but for a 1st time in Atlanta, well done. I think if 2 other sounds were in there they would have won it easily, I'm talking about Dubplex and Black Talon who played a finer selection of tunes in Skillz to Thrill, maybe next year. No dis to the competing sounds of course.
Officiating time and "A Representative from each sound" was line up in their playing order to see who won the dub round for Atlanta's 1st Fully Loaded. Some claps for AP, Nuff forwards etc for Textra, about the same for Eternity, claps for for Supreme, boos for Highlanda and nuff noise for Dajavoo. Now here's where it got sticky, Mega picks out Textra & Dajavoo to find out who won the 45 round. In my humble opinion, sure Dajavoo did well, but come on Eternity got heavy forwards from start to end and Textra did much better than Dajavoo, but so it go. Dajavoo will go on to a controversial win stunning the Aquarium crowd but to the delights of their fickle fans! In a sportsman like manner Textra & Eternity takes their loss and moves on to the Dub Round! ... to be continued |
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