Toppa Top 10: Ten Jamaicans Who Topped the Billboard Hot 100

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July 17, 2015


Ini Kamoze – Here Comes the Hotstepper (1994)
ini-kamoze

Ini Kamoze packs more memorable, sing-along-lines and refrains into this 1994 hip-hop remix smash than there is “juice” in “a strawberry.” But the classic quotables (“Naaa nanana naaa nana na naaaa,” “Murde-rah!,” “I know what Bo don’t know/Touch them up and go, wuh-oh”) only partly explain why this comeback track from the mid ‘80s reggae star topped the Billboard Hot 100 Chart for two weeks in December 1994. Producer Salaam Remi’s timely blend of hip-hop and reggae definitely had something to do with it; he told us the story behind the track back in 2012—read it here. “Hotstepper” was Ini’s only US hit, however, his 1984 song “World A Music” was sampled in Damian Marley’s “Welcome To Jamrock,” which reached No. 55 in 2005. — Kieran Meadows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX_anLr1W_Y