Album: Various artists, Dancehall 2 (Soul Jazz)

Two CDs documenting the passage of Jamaican "dancehall" music of the early 1980s, from Lone Ranger, Tristan Palma, Ini Kamoze and Yellowman through to the shoutier newer-school voices of Tiger and Buju Banton.

Over the duration of two dozen DJ-dominated extended mixes, we hear how the expediencies of high-turnover, low-cost production accelerated reggae away from the song-based music of the 1970s towards a new model based on the virtues of hard rhythm and harder declamation. Tuffer than tuff.