Do you know what a 'steppa rhythm' is? One of the great dancefloor moments, DJ Tayo's production of Pupajim on 'Vampayaa', is the perfect example. Boom. Boom. Bsssh. Bom. Boom. Boom. Bsssh. Bom. You can't put the words dub, version, step, roots, even reggae on next to your name unless you can pull off a real righteous steppa rhythm. Any producer making claims out there, better check against the Vampayaa standard. Pure gold.
Tayo met PupaJim at a Glazart gig in Paris. The word was out that Pupajim had a wicked reggae voice, along the lines of Paul St Hilaire. This was enough for Tayo to set to work laying down the dub and bass...I asked Tayo about how this monumental rhythm came to be.:
" Actually, 'Vampayaa' was originally going to be a breakbeat track coming out on Paul Arnold's Chew The Fat label. But I realised I'm not into breakbeat anymore [This from one of the pioneers of breakbeat in the UK!]. So I reworked the sample "version style", and turned it into a steppas tune wrote a brass section, and sent it to 'Jim. He wrote the lyrics and it became Vampayaa"
The rest is a small but significant piece of new wave dub history.
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