Ashanti, Ja Rule Pay Homage To Dancehall Culture At ‘Mega YUSH’
American superstars Ja Rule and Ashanti touched down at Mega YUSH on Saturday night at Sabina Park in Kingston, which left many in awe.
The highlight of scores of the thousands who had turned out to fill their eyes was Ashanti’s cover of Dawn Penn’s classic hit No No No, as well as a remix of Gyptian’s Hold Yuh.
The Grammy Award-winning singer, who has in the past expressed deep love for Jamaica and Dancehall music, wore a typical ‘passa passa’ outfit consisting of a black, green and gold one piece, fishnet stockings, thigh-high boots, and a ponytail. Her backup dancers also wore outfits in the rich gold color, to represent the Jamaican national flag.
According to the singer, it would have been odd for her to come to Jamaica and not prove that she was in touch with Jamaican music.
“It’s Remix time!” she yelled as she jumped into choreography mood while putting her own lyrics to the Hold Yuh rhythm.
Naturally, that caused members of the crowd to erupt. By their reaction, they did not regret the pretty penny they paid to come see the international celebrities.
Hold Yuh appeared on a 2010 album of the same name by Gyptian. The song peaked at No. 77 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 16 on the UK Singles Chart, and No. 69 on the Canadian Hot 100. In June 2013, the song was certified Gold in the United States after surpassing sales of 500,000 units, and Platinum in the UK for sales exceeding 600,000 units.
Last May, Dawn Penn’s No No No was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) after it sold more than 400,000 copies in the UK.
The song, which Penn said she wrote when she was experiencing “the painful aftermath of love” and “a broken heart”, was first recorded by her for Studio One in 1967, but had been re-recorded after in 1968, after producer Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd pointed out that the original recording had an error.
Penn’s song used elements of American R&B singer Willie Cobbs’s song You Don’t Love Me (1960), which itself is based on R&B singer Bo Diddley’s She’s Fine, She’s Mine (1955). Both Cobbs and Diddley are credited as songwriters on Penn’s No, No, No.
She recorded the song again for King Jammys in 1990, then in 1992 for Trojan, and 1993 for Steelie and Clevie, when Dodd asked the production duo “to do an album project for Heartbeat, celebrating Studio One’s 35 years in the music industry”.
The Steelie and Clevie version peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart at No. 58 in April 1994, and also entered the UK Charts at No. 9 before rising to No. 3.
Both Ashanti and Ja Rule continuously expressed their joy at sharing a stage on the island for the first time. For almost two decades, YUSH has been a calendar 90s and 2000s event. This year, the mega version is aimed at raising proceeds for the UWI scholarship fund.
They treated fans to some of their classics like What’s Luv, Mesmerize, Always On Time, and Wonderful.
Ashanti and Ja Rule Live Performance (Mega Yush 2022) Kingston, Jamaica – Always on Time / Foolish @ashanti @jarule #MegaYush #kingston #Jamaica #sabinapark #yushparty pic.twitter.com/1vItdP8d3a
— Afrobeatgiant (@Afrobeatgiant1) November 27, 2022
During a visit to Jamaica in 2014, Ashanti told Onstage, “I absolutely love Jamaica, I love Jamaican culture I love reggae music, I always say I don’t know what happened to me I was supposed to be born Jamaican and it got messed up, my situation didn’t plan out that way.”
It was that same year that she and Dancehall legend Beenie Man teamed up for First Real Love, which appeared as the Outro (last song) on her fifth studio album, Braveheart.
In 2016 she returned to the island again to perform for a Shaggy and Friends Concert, where she reunited with Beenie for another stage performance.
Ashanti recently received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, according to PEOPLE.
