Shane O Voices ‘Dark Room’ Dubplate For DJ Khaled’s Sound Clash Collection

As Shane O continues to revel in the huge push his song Dark Room was given by DJ Khaled, the Dancehall star has recorded a dubplate/special for the We The Best producer to add to his soundclash arsenal.

“Him (Khaled) request the dub and there was no hesitation, becaw ah him really send the song a road,” he told DancehallMag.

On Instagram, Shane O shared a clip of himself in a studio, interpolating Dark Room to create the dub, in which he promised in graphic language that Khaled would decimate his rivals in any turntable duel.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cf4VckvF83D/

On June 28, Khaled had shared a video of himself cheering as Shane O belted out the Trap-infused song, at a location somewhere in Kingston and declared him and the song as “fire”.

“Feel Good Boss arranged the meeting, just by telling me Khaled want to see me, and who wouldn’t want to see Khaled?” Shane O told DancehallMag.

By the following day, June 29, ‘Dark Room’ shot to #9 on iTunes Top 100 Reggae Songs, the first time a song for Shane O made it that far on the charts.

The Lightning Flash artist had taken to his Instagram page to thank Khaled for his support: “@djkhaled Thank you so much…U put your hands on the dark room…And now it’s in the light”.

Since then, after climbing from just under 1 million to 1.6 million views, hours after Khaled’s post, the song has now swelled to more than 2.9 million views on YouTube.

When Shane O’s released the visuals for Dark Room, it was hailed as “a breath of fresh air” by Dancehall fans, who lamented that they have become exasperated with the monotonous, unmelodious and bellicose lyrical content which have characterized the majority of Trap songs being recorded in the island.

Dark Room which was recorded last year, was released in March this year and was hailed by fans as another classic by Shane O, which was proof that Trap does not have to be centered on violent and hedonistic criminal lifestyles, such as lotto-scamming and witchcraft.

As for Khaled, the Palestinian-American has stated long ago that Bounty Killer played an instrumental role in his music career, as he was enthusiastically supported by the Gun Ready artist in the early days of his career, while doing shows regularly in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital.

The We The Best producer’s association with Reggae and Dancehall back in the 1990s, when he often visited Jamaica to play at events, particularly the Fully Loaded, Reloaded and Overloaded series of beach parties organized by Solid Agency.   Bounty Killer, as well as his compatriots Sizzla, Buju and Capleton had supplied him with dubplates and gave him guidance back then.

Last year, Khaled had said that in the early days of his career as a DJ, he would travel between Miami and Kingston to observe Jamaica’s soundclash culture and that this, gave him the impetus “to evolve from a teenage bedroom-turntablist to a popular Miami radio DJ”, who would play Rap and Dancehall mixes.   He had also said that his popularity had grown quickly courtesy of dubplates and specials from the Jamaican stars with whom he formed friendships.

The sound system industry, which is rooted in clashing, developed in Jamaica in the 1950s after World War II, and gradually rose to prominence.

Artistes such as Bounty Killer, Sizzla, Capleton and Lieutenant Stitchie are among the top dubplate specialists in Jamaica and have been highly sought after over the years for dubs, which are re-recorded versions of their original songs, interpolated for play in a sound clash, and which mentions the names of the sound system, while criticizing, jeering and oftentimes berating the opposing sound systems owners and selectors.

Dubplates, also known as “specials”, have made many artists earn a lot of money from off their craft, even more than they collect off of royalties from their original songs.  A key case is Bounty Killer who, as a young artiste was given a truck to voice dub plates until he felt like stopping.

In a 2019 interview, veteran sound system operator and music producer, Lloyd ‘King Jammy’ James had told The Gleaner that at one point in time Bounty was Jamaica’s most expensive dub-plate artist.

A Red Bull Academy article which was published in 2016, noted that the costs for voicing dubplates vary based on the category of the artistes, which spans from an A-list to a C-list, and that with a good middle man, getting a dub from stars like Capleton or Sizzla could cost about £500.

“It’s quite an expensive thing to get into, but it’s like record collecting, it’s quite addictive,” the article had noted.