Rampin’ Shop Challenge


Vybz Kartel widget by 6L & Daxii

You know when you see a link that’s like “Add this to your site”? Well this time I couldn’t really think of a reason not to :)
Except for the obligatory Jamaican anti-gay lines at the beginning and the end, but then Lily made a version with those cut out. Minus the homophobia, it’s totally one of the prettiest love songs of the year. The whispered “Shh di climax begun…” verse is amazing.

Plus the song is in the middle of a controversy in Jamaica where all songs about sex or violence were just banned from Jamaican Radio (see “The Wickedest Slam”), so you gotta show your support.




And now for the challenge! I want to see a video of two people walking into a Karaoke bar and doing a Rampin Shop duet over the Miss Independent riddim. Most up-to-date karaoke places will have Miss Independent by now. Brazil doesn’t keep current with new American stuff, so I can’t do it here.

Here’s the karaoke track you’re most likely to encounter. Finish the intro quick so you start verse 1 right at Ooh there’s something about her. Later in the song there’s a long bridge you might need to work around so the chorus comes back in with the full, synth-heavy beat.


Just one more direction: sing it like you’re the bride and groom singing “I had the time of my life” at your wedding. Lots of eye contact, smiles, maybe even tears.

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Sao Paolo party super fun

My friends were opening a store. Karaoke instrumentals work great as ambient music, and being a DJ is much easier because without vocals and with a similar (and pleasantly generic) production style, songs fit together really easy.

Like, there are tons of songs a DJ could never play back to back, but it works fine with the karaoke versions. Then things got singy.

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Those little rectangles in the bottom right are field recordings of Brazilian kids singing! Soon, soon!

Lollipop (inspiration)


Valentines Cheer!

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I should!

Akon – Don’t Matter


Via Wayne: amazing kid version of “Don’t Matter”. Fight for your right to repurpose.

BTW: once when I was in Trinidad I jumped in on somebody elses’s rendition of this (he was down) and did Remix to Ignition and Wyclef – Stripper Song (”Just cause she dance the go go…”). Super fun, you should try it.

El Gato Volador / Lookin Kitty


I’d like to see somebody do either one of these at a karaoke night.


The instrumental for this one is easy to get. It would be hilarious, and cute!

Thanks Wayne!

There is a light and it never goes out


Marcel Proust on Karaoke

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“Detest bad music but do not despise it. As it is played, and especially sung, much more passionately than good music, it has much more than the latter been impregnated, little by little, with man’s tears. Hold it therefore in veneration. It’s place, nonexistent in the history of art, is immense in the sentimental history of nations”. – Marcel Proust

From hardkoraoke.blogspot.com. Maybe I’ve found a kindred spirit?

Tearjerker


Jay-Z My President is black Remix LIVE 1-18-09 from pleasedontstare.com on Vimeo.