After spending a few days around Popcaan, I’ll realize that he’s bestowed nearly everyone in his orbit with a similarly colorful nickname (his older half-brother, Demonie, is known as Squidell). Asked about the name, she nods to her brother, who apparently saw something of the SpongeBob SquarePants character Squidward in her. “Squid!” Popcaan calls out to a young woman who turns out to be his sister, Annalecia. It’s helped him stand out among the innumerable young dancehall artists in Jamaica, and it also makes him easy to find in a crowd. He’s short, about 5’6”, and slight of frame, but his voice is piercing and unmistakable, a high-pitched aural weapon with a unique frequency. You tend to hear Popcaan-born Andrae Sutherland-before you see him. By late afternoon, the crowd has swelled to about 50 people: cousins and other extended family, Kingston friends and curious local youths who’ve ridden up the hill on bikes. When it’s decided that we’ll be playing soccer upon our arrival, we make a detour to Morant Bay, a coastal town known for a bloody 1865 rebellion and a market where, it turns out, shorts can be bought for the equivalent of $4 US.Īfter turning onto a narrow and rocky dirt road up inna de bush to an area known as Sunning Hill (or maybe it’s Sunny Hill-in Jamaica, place names and spellings are sometimes fluid), we finally arrive at the banks of the Roaring River, a somewhat misleadingly named stream where Popcaan’s father, known as Shaggy, and a few other relatives have set up grills along the shore, preparing jerk and curry chicken. Wildman, a reggae artist in a Bob Marley tee and Yankees cap, meets us at a roadside stand just outside Kingston city limits in Bull Bay and stocks the trunk of the SUV with mangoes and tart june plums. We depart at midday from Shocking Vibes studio, the Kingston facility that is the central axis of all things Popcaan, and make stops to pick up passengers and supplies. But for the 25-year-old dancehall artist, who’s about to release a debut album called Where We Come From, it’s a place substantial enough to rally up a caravan of friends and associates for the two-hour drive from Kingston just so a visiting journalist can get a window into his roots.
Hayfield, the rural village in Jamaica’s Saint Thomas parish where Popcaan spent his earliest years, isn’t on the map-at least not the allegedly omnipotent one used by Google. This is the third of four covers from our annual Summer Music issue that we'll be revealing this week. The FADER put it perfectly: “A true rags to reggae fairytale.From the magazine: ISSUE 92, June/July 2014. “Obviously it’s been an honor to work with an artist like Popcaan, considering how much he’s doing and how talented he is, but the song is also getting a lot of love in Jamaica and that makes me feel very fortunate. Premiering exclusively on The FADER, Lucas admits the journey has been a blessings so far: While Lucas remains faithful to his acoustic guitar, the video features him and Popcaan at a late-night Jamaican rave, requesting ‘ no talking inna di club.’ It only made sense for the video for his latest single “ No Talking” to take place in Jamaica and for Popcaan to be the featured guest.
You may recognize this young Torontonian for his outstanding dormroom acoustic covers of popular dancehall tracks, such as Popcaan‘s “ Party Shot.” It seems Lucas DiPasquale‘s dormroom covers have paid off: his name is buzzing in Jamaica, and has collaborated with Konshens and Kardinall Offishallon his Post-Secondary EP.
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