![]() ![]() That success had led to a guest spot on Beyoncé’s “ Baby Boy,” another chart-topper. A couple of years earlier, Sean had topped the Hot 100 with “ Get Busy,” arguably the first straight-up dancehall anthem to reach #1. At that point, Sean Paul was right in the middle of a huge crossover run. On a night like that, you might expect Sean Paul to headline. ![]() I’d moved to New York a few weeks earlier, and I couldn’t believe that I got to be in that room. The entire night, the crowd’s energy barely dipped. Sizzla, the deeply intense cult hero, emerged from his compound to soak in the love of the crowd. Damian Marley, fire burning in his eyes, growled his way through “Welcome To Jamrock,” one of that year’s biggest anthems. That evening, Hot 97, the New York rap-radio giant, rounded up most of dancehall’s hottest acts - Vybz Kartel, T.O.K., I Wayne, Assassin - for a show called On Da Reggae Tip. That utterly absurd Elephant Man set was the climax of one of the greatest nights of live music I’ve ever witnessed. It was something Benny Hill would’ve done if he’d been an Olympic-level athlete. He almost dropped her a couple of times, but he kept his grip. With this lady’s legs wrapped around his torso, Elephant Man ran all over the stage, even leaping on speaker stacks, all while vigorously humping his partner. Then, Elephant Man scooped one of them up and held her aloft. Elephant Man and Diddy proceeded to perform some extremely explicit dances with these two women. Elephant Man then demanded that Diddy, who’d been watching the show from the side of the stage all night, come out. I don’t know whether these two women were plants or whether they were really out there in the audience, but both of them dwarfed Elephant Man, who is not small. When Elephant Man requested two larger ladies to come to the stage, he got his wish. Instead, he ran all around the stage and called out the names of dances: Signal di plane! Give dem a run! The entire crowd - virtually all Black, many waving flags of different Caribbean nations - did all those dances the second that Elephant Man called them out. That night, Elephant Man didn’t really sing, and he didn’t really rap. He was dressed in a campy parody of Western wear - tiny cowboy hat, six-shooter holsters, leather vest over bare chest - and he was already dripping with sweat. In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.Įlephant Man looked out at the euphoric Hammerstein Ballroom crowd and bellowed, “I need a couple of big, fat women!” The wildly charismatic Jamaican dancehall deejay had his hair tied up in two buns, one dyed bright yellow and the other bright red. ![]()
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