Marvin Sparks

By now, you may have read the  best of Jamaican music awards , plus the 20 top reggae and bashment songs of 2015 . Now is time for the round up of Jamaican music's influence outside of the core music. How reggae and bashment was either used or influence UK, US, South American, African music and more in 2015.

This ain't in a particular order because how innit? And to be fair, its the first 20 songs that spring to mind. That's gotta be a good way to tell. I think anyway. And it ain't factual, its just my opinion. There will be a lot of songs I like that aren't on here so yeah, wul dis. I did an awards ceremony you can check here but this one is a way to share the song's I rated. The world a reggae and bashment ones here . Stay locked. But anyway, here goes...

So anyway, I always think of dancehall and reggae as summer to summer. If a riddim didn't run summer, it doesn't qualify for a release that year. This stems back to going to Jamaica every year for Independence weekend. And Jamaican music sounds so much better in the lead up to and in the summer, anyway. I've had this in my drafts since about October and held out posting it just to see if anything would change this. It didn't so this will be my last end of year awards at this time of the year. It'll drop earlier. And it's my opinion anyway  based on my observations and experiences.

So, if you follow me on Twitter, you'll know I've been fully hoping for Justin Bieber 'Sorry' to hit number 1 in the UK (it's number 1 song in the world on Spotify too). I was fully annoyed Adele released 'Hello' because it was a sure fire number 1. Well, four weeks into its release it finally reached the summit of UK's best selling singles - without an official video (the online dance video of girls from New Zealand doing dancehall moves doesn't count). Instead of the one week it'll get before Adele reclaims the spot this week, who knows how long it would've held the top for. This is the third time this year a mammoth song has kept a reggae or dancehall pop song off the top spot. R. City (' Locked Away ') were kept at number 2 the week Sam Smith released his boring Bond song, likewise Omi 'Cheerleader' was kept off for about four weeks due to Charlie Puth 'See You Again' featuring Wiz Khalifa (no typo) being a tribu...

Once again, I'd like to say mainstream approval is not the be all and end all, however it provides a very important cog in getting my favourite artists the ears they deserve. If a reggae song has the quality and steam to go forward and benefit from the exposure a national radio station, the biggest radio station UK can give, why shouldn't it be taken advantage of? As long as they hold their rights, own their stuff and aren't manipulated out of shape by the industry, I'm all for it. Give them their dues. Why hold everyone in a corner? It ain't for everyone, but for those who can benefit and help shine a light, go bring that light, bruv. I'm much more against making good music have to jump loads and loads of obstacles because of dated thinking, lack of resources afforded to independents and lack of opportunities given to non-US/UK/EU/AUS music. Fix that. I'd also like to take a moment to say I gave Protoje his first mainstream mention in 2012  (alongside ...

So, it was announced that Major Lazer 'Lean On' broke the record for most played song in Spotify's history . Small feat in that it's only one platform, but massive feat in that its still the most played song ever on a huge platform. But what does this mean? Well, what I get from it is confirmation of something I've always known. A dancehall song  can rule the world.

no long talk with Assassin aka Agent Sasco. After the long two-parter with Kabaka Pyramid, this is a very short one in comparison. I can tell by his style that he has a true school dancehall foundation with hip hop style lyricism so I wanted to know about his sound system beginnings. Also, we speak about growing up in a one room, board house (house made with board) with his family and lessons learnt. Not believing he could be a dancehall artist until ghostwriting for one of his childhood icon, Spragga Benz. There have been numerous moments of peaks and troughs along the way, including big songs (Anywhere We Go, Ruffest, Eediot Ting) on iconic riddims (85, Diwali, Steps) with dancehall legends on production duties (Dave Kelly, Lenky, Daseca) to quiet periods and the tune-for-tune yet non-clash with a young Vybz Kartel. He shares the stories behind "Ruffest", "Anywhere We Go" and "Do It If Ya Bad", why Kartel wanted to clash him and why he wasn't...