High Society Riddim – Annex Records

By 2005, Annex Records had this one sitting comfortably in the era’s harder-edged dancehall run, and High Society Riddim lines up a sturdy cast with Bounty Killer, Alley Cat, Kiprich, Keely B and Kid Kurupt all taking turns on the same cut. The rhythm has that mid-2000s bounce and tension you’d expect from a bashy studio piece: sharp enough for the gun-talk and girl tunes, but still loose enough to let tracks like Bounty Killer’s “Thanks In Advance” and Kiprich’s “Wife Material” snap through cleanly. Keely B gets two outings here, while the riddim version keeps the project moving with no dead space, and the full set runs 14 tracks with 13 different voices, ending on Turbulance’s “Dun Dem. ”