Toasting
Encyclopedia
Toasting, chatting, or deejaying is the act of talking or chanting, usually in a monotone melody, over a rhythm
or beat
by a deejay
. The lyrics can be either improvised or pre-written. Toasting has been used in various Africa
n traditions, such as griot
s chanting over a drum beat, as well as in Jamaican music
forms, such as dancehall
, reggae
, ska
, dub
, and lovers rock
. Toasting's mix of talking and chanting may have influenced the development of MCing
in US hip hop music
. The combination of singing and toasting is known as singjay
ing.
toasting was developed by Count Machuki. He conceived the idea from listening to disc jockeys on American radio stations. He would do American jive over the music while selecting and playing R&B music. Deejays like Count Machuki working for producers would play the latest hits on traveling sound systems at parties and add their toasts or vocals to the music. These toasts consisted of comedy, boastful commentaries, chants, half-sung rhymes, rhythmic chants, squeals, screams, and rhymed storytelling.
Osbourne Ruddock (aka King Tubby
) was a Jamaican sound recording engineer who created vocal-less rhythm backing tracks that were used by DJs doing "toasting" by creating one-off vinyl discs (also known as dub plates) of songs without the vocals and adding echo and sound effects.
Late 1960s toasting deejays included U-Roy
and Dennis Alcapone
, the latter known for mixing gangster talk with humor in his toasting. In the early 1970s, toasting deejays included I-Roy
(his nickname is an homage to U-Roy) and Dillinger
, the latter known for his humorous toasting style. In the late 1970s, Trinity
became a popular toasting deejay.
The 1980s saw the first deejay Toasting duo, Michigan & Smiley
, and the development of toasting outside of Jamaica. In England, Pato Banton
explored his Caribbean roots humorous and political toasting and Ranking Roger
of the Second Wave or Two-Tone ska
revival band the Beat
from the 1980s did Jamaican toasting over music that blended ska, pop, and some punk
influences.
The rhythmic rhyming of vocals in Jamaican deejay toasting influenced the development of rapping in African-American hip-hop, and the development of the Dancehall style. (e.g., hip-hop pioneer and Jamaican expatriate DJ Kool Herc
and Phife Dawg
of A Tribe Called Quest
). Jamaican deejay toasting also influenced various types of dance music, such as jungle music
, and UK garage
. Dancehall artists that have achieved pop hits with toasting-influenced vocals include Shabba Ranks
, Shaggy, Lady Saw
, and Sean Paul
. Another up-and-coming Jamaican toasting star is Damian Marley
, son of reggae legend Bob Marley
.
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
or beat
Beat (music)
The beat is the basic unit of time in music, the pulse of the mensural level . In popular use, the beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: tempo, meter, rhythm and groove...
by a deejay
Deejay
A deejay is a reggae or dancehall musician who sings and toasts to an instrumental riddim .Deejays are not to be confused with disc jockeys from other music genres like hip-hop, where they select and play music. Dancehall/reggae DJs who select riddims to play are called selectors...
. The lyrics can be either improvised or pre-written. Toasting has been used in various Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n traditions, such as griot
Griot
A griot or jeli is a West African storyteller. The griot delivers history as a poet, praise singer, and wandering musician. The griot is a repository of oral tradition. As such, they are sometimes also called bards...
s chanting over a drum beat, as well as in Jamaican music
Music of Jamaica
The music of Jamaica includes Jamaican folk music and many popular genres, such as mento, ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub music, dancehall, reggae fusion and related styles. Jamaica's music culture is a fusion of elements from the United States , Africa, and neighboring Caribbean islands such as...
forms, such as dancehall
Dancehall
Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s. In the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably,...
, reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
, ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
, dub
Dub music
Dub is a genre of music which grew out of reggae music in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae...
, and lovers rock
Lovers rock
Lovers rock is a style of reggae music noted for its romantic sound and content. While love songs had been an important part of reggae since the late 1960s, the style was given a greater focus and a name in London in the mid 1970s.-History:...
. Toasting's mix of talking and chanting may have influenced the development of MCing
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
in US hip hop music
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
. The combination of singing and toasting is known as singjay
Singjay
Singjaying is a Jamaican style of reggae vocals combining toasting and singing in an elastic format that encourages rhythmically compelling and texturally impressive vocal embellishments. The performer is called singjay, a combination of singer and deejay.The fusion of singing and deejaying...
ing.
Jamaican toasting
In the late 1950s deejayDeejay
A deejay is a reggae or dancehall musician who sings and toasts to an instrumental riddim .Deejays are not to be confused with disc jockeys from other music genres like hip-hop, where they select and play music. Dancehall/reggae DJs who select riddims to play are called selectors...
toasting was developed by Count Machuki. He conceived the idea from listening to disc jockeys on American radio stations. He would do American jive over the music while selecting and playing R&B music. Deejays like Count Machuki working for producers would play the latest hits on traveling sound systems at parties and add their toasts or vocals to the music. These toasts consisted of comedy, boastful commentaries, chants, half-sung rhymes, rhythmic chants, squeals, screams, and rhymed storytelling.
Osbourne Ruddock (aka King Tubby
King Tubby
King Tubby was a Jamaican electronics and sound engineer, known primarily for his influence on the development of dub in the 1960s and 1970s...
) was a Jamaican sound recording engineer who created vocal-less rhythm backing tracks that were used by DJs doing "toasting" by creating one-off vinyl discs (also known as dub plates) of songs without the vocals and adding echo and sound effects.
Late 1960s toasting deejays included U-Roy
U-Roy
U-Roy , OD, is a Jamaican musician, also known as The Originator. He is best known as a pioneer of toasting.-Biography:...
and Dennis Alcapone
Dennis Alcapone
Dennis Alcapone is a reggae DJ and producer.-Career:Smith initially trained as a welder and worked for the Jamaica Public Services...
, the latter known for mixing gangster talk with humor in his toasting. In the early 1970s, toasting deejays included I-Roy
I-Roy
Roy Samuel Reid better known as I-Roy was a Jamaican DJ who had a very prolific career during the 1970s.-Biography:...
(his nickname is an homage to U-Roy) and Dillinger
Dillinger (musician)
Dillinger is a reggae artist.-Biography:As a young man growing up in Kingston, Dillinger would hang around Dennis Alcapone's El Paso sound system...
, the latter known for his humorous toasting style. In the late 1970s, Trinity
Trinity (musician)
Trinity aka Junior Brammer is a reggae deejay and producer, whose career began in the mid-1970s and continued into the 1990s.-Biography:Born in 1954, Brammer was educated at the Alpha Boys School...
became a popular toasting deejay.
The 1980s saw the first deejay Toasting duo, Michigan & Smiley
Michigan & Smiley
Michigan and Smiley were a Jamaican singing combo of the late 1970s first wave of dancehall music, consisting of Papa Michigan and General Smiley .-Career:...
, and the development of toasting outside of Jamaica. In England, Pato Banton
Pato Banton
Pato Banton is a reggae singer and toaster from Birmingham, England. He received the nickname 'Pato' from his stepfather, and 'Banton' from the disc jockey slang for a "heavyweight DJ".-Biography:Born in Birmingham, Banton first came to public attention in the early 1980s when he worked with The...
explored his Caribbean roots humorous and political toasting and Ranking Roger
Ranking Roger
Ranking Roger is an English musician. He was a vocalist in the 1980s two-tone band, The Beat and General Public...
of the Second Wave or Two-Tone ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
revival band the Beat
The Beat (band)
The Beat are a 2 Tone ska revival band founded in England in 1978. Their songs fuse ska, pop, soul, reggae and punk rock, and their lyrics deal with themes of love, unity and sociopolitical topics....
from the 1980s did Jamaican toasting over music that blended ska, pop, and some punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
influences.
The rhythmic rhyming of vocals in Jamaican deejay toasting influenced the development of rapping in African-American hip-hop, and the development of the Dancehall style. (e.g., hip-hop pioneer and Jamaican expatriate DJ Kool Herc
DJ Kool Herc
Clive Campbell , also known as Kool Herc, DJ Kool Herc and Kool DJ Herc, is a Jamaican-born DJ who is credited with originating hip hop music, in The Bronx, New York City...
and Phife Dawg
Phife Dawg
Malik Isaac Taylor , better known by his stage name Phife Dawg, is an American rapper of Trinidadian descent, and a member of the acclaimed group A Tribe Called Quest with high school classmates Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad...
of A Tribe Called Quest
A Tribe Called Quest
A Tribe Called Quest is an American hip hop group, formed in 1985, and is composed of rapper/producer Q-Tip , rapper Phife Dawg , and DJ/producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad. A fourth member, rapper Jarobi White, left the group after their first album but rejoined in 2006...
). Jamaican deejay toasting also influenced various types of dance music, such as jungle music
Oldschool jungle
Jungle is a genre of electronic music that incorporates influences from genres including breakbeat hardcore, and reggae/dub/dancehall. There is debate as to whether jungle is a separate genre from drum and bass as many use the terms interchangeably...
, and UK garage
UK garage
UK garage is a genre of electronic dance music originating from the United Kingdom in the early-1990s. UK garage is a descendant of house music which originated in Chicago and New York, United States. UK garage usually features a distinctive syncopated 4/4 percussive rhythm with 'shuffling'...
. Dancehall artists that have achieved pop hits with toasting-influenced vocals include Shabba Ranks
Shabba Ranks
Shabba Ranks is a Jamaican dancehall musician.He was one of the most popular dancehall artists of his generation. He was also one of the first Jamaican deejays to gain worldwide acceptance, and recognition for his 'slack' lyrical expressions and content, when "ridin' di riddim"...
, Shaggy, Lady Saw
Lady Saw
Lady Saw is a Jamaican reggae singer, known as the queen of dancehall.-Biography:...
, and Sean Paul
Sean Paul
Sean Paul Ryan Francis Henriques , who performs under stage name Sean Paul, is a Jamaican pop rap and reggae singer.-1973–1996: Early life:...
. Another up-and-coming Jamaican toasting star is Damian Marley
Damian Marley
Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley is a Jamaican reggae artist who has won three Grammy awards. Damian is the youngest son of Bob Marley....
, son of reggae legend Bob Marley
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers...
.
See also
- RappingRappingRapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
- A cappellaA cappellaA cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
- Beatbox
- Doo-wopDoo-wopThe name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
- onomatopoeia
- Scat singingScat singingIn vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.- Structure and syllable choice...
- VocaleseVocaleseVocalese is a style or genre of jazz singing wherein lyrics are written for melodies that were originally part of an all-instrumental composition or improvisation. Whereas scat singing uses improvised nonsense syllables, such as "bap ba dee dot bwee dee" in solos, vocalese uses lyrics, either...
- Voice instrumental music