were just as creative as the Hippies of the US during that same era.

So while Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were slaying audiences all over the United States, a musical form that would touch the world was being born in the small, dark dancehalls of Jamaica.

The dancehall has always been perhaps the most important place for a Reggae artist to achieve prominence. Bob Marley and the seventies Conscious Movement enjoyed prominence in the dancehall before they stretched their influence around the globe; if they hadn't, they would never have got that opportunity.

It is a trick of conservative history that dancehall music has been ostracised and stigmatised as something slack and not worth paying attention to. All Reggae music is dancehall music! All things born to a cat are cats right? And all cats have relatively the same skills and instincts right? Maybe dancehall music reflects the society it emerges from a little more closely than some people would like, but isn't that what art's about? The answer you are looking for is YES! So if you are one of those closed-minded folks who don't see value in the honest art of legions of young, gifted and black urban sufferahs, you may want to skip this article, cuz I quite enjoyed Elephant Man and Lexxus on Saturday night (and I wasn't the only one!).

Elephant Man is a deejay with a very recognisable delivery, as well as a few quite popular catch phrases (which is very important for a dancehall artist).

His rise to dancehall prominence has been fast and furious this year, with songs like Elephant Man, Replacement Killer and Watchie Pum making him the undisputed best new artist on the dancehall scene in 2000.

Well, this weekend the man with the platinum baby Dreads and unmistakable lisp was in Bermuda to light up Number One Shed, and that's not even the whole story ... one Mr. Lexxus also came down to unleash his considerable arsenal upon all the local rudebwoys and dancehall queens as well. Here's how it went.

I got to the shed around 11 p.m. thinking that I'll catch the last of the juggling (playing of selected records to achieve a frenzied effect in the attendant crowd), and the show would start soon after ... WRONG ANSWER!! Now I realise that Young Lion Promotions is a new group and they will have a few glitches before they get it completely right -- but c'mon people -- the show didn't start until 1 a.m.! But I'm getting ahead of myself ... let's get back to the two hour juggling session shall we? Reaction Syndicate held the crowd in check for the duration of the long vigil with a plethora of to-the-minute dancehall thrillers.

Their arsenal was a hearty stew chock full of Bounty Killa, Beenie Man, Ward 21 and, of course, Capleton. And the crowd bubbled and wined to each twist of the DJ's wrist. Lightah and lickshot (a hand signal that is meant to give due respect to the deejay for playing such a marvellous tune) dominated the sky as the ample audience swayed in delirious appreciation of the selector's (the guy who works in tandem with the Deejay to pick, or select, popular records to be played in a specific order) considerable efforts.

But even though the dance was hotting up with every new tune that played, I was getting kind of impatient sometime around 12.30 a.m. when the crowd had got as big as it was going to get (somewhere around 800 strong) and there was still no sign of a show.

Dancehall rocks Front Street crowd Bounty Killa in Brixton ... he showed up at 2 a.m. and did a scorching set ...

this show was very similar to that one. Danny English took the stage around 1 a.m., and proceeded to carry the crowd for all of two minutes before he became, well ... boring. Tiny T bounced onto the stage like an A.D.H.D. Tigger soon after and injected some much needed life into Danny's set, but in the final analysis, I can't say why that particular act was necessary at all.

OK, the guy wasn't all bad ... his style and voice were good, so was his delivery, but there was something lackin' lyrically and dramatically (I hope he sat and took notes from Lex and Elephant Man's performance). Tiny T don't need no lessons though, she was as energetic and charismatic as ever.

Lexxus invaded the stage soon after the show started, and ripped into the heart of his quite recognisable repertoire. Let Those Monkeys Out, Holla, Holla and Ring Mi Cellie dropped in quick succession, and the extremely energetic crowd bounced and hollered and sent clouds of fire into the air with every bomb he dropped. By the time Elephant Man jumped out from behind one of the giant speakers, the youthful crowd was already in a full-fledged frenzy.

By the time Lexxus dropped his monster hit from last summer -- Cook -- I was thinking that he could have carried this show all by himself (and he wasn't even the headliner).

Perhaps the most entertaining feature of this show was that both rising stars stayed on stage for the duration of the set, playing off each other's energy and going hit for hit with the captivated crowd of gawking youths at their mercy until sometime around 2 a.m.. Perhaps the only down point of the entire show was that the microphones sounded really bad. In fact, the sound system was not too impressive at all that night. I wanted to give the sound crew the benefit of the doubt and say that it was the acoustics in Number One Shed that made the whole thing sound awfully tinny, but I recall a Morgan Heritage, Sizzla & Luciano concert there a few years back when everything sounded snakeskin smooth.

Anyway, for whatever reason, the mics were shot, and I thought the constant trading of mics took something away from a lot of the spontaneous antics the two superstars came up with. But I am nit picking, the show was quite impressive, the energy was amazing and I don't think anyone left the shed that night feeling like they'd been gypped.

Good show Young Lions, I truly hope you all came out on top and that you have a full slate of similar quality shows lined up for the coming months. Much respect, and keep the dancehall vibes alive! Veejay Steede ENTERTAINMENT ENTERTAINERS ENT REVIEW REV