Nobody’s a Stranger When You Play “No Letting Go”

I was not live for Dylan going electric, but I was live for the Diwali riddim. I can’t ideate that the sixties felt truthful monumental. In 2003, it seemed that each different opus connected the vigor was built connected the Jamaican shaper Steven (Lenky) Marsden’s backing track, named aft the Hindu festival of lights and instantly recognizable for its jubilant handclaps, surging, feinting bass line, and stuttering drums. In the hypercompetitive satellite of dancehall, a fashionable riddim is an invitation to brinkmanship, artists large and tiny jumping connected the bushed to spot who tin marque the astir iconic song. I saw the champion minds of my procreation suffer it to Wayne Wonder’s “No Letting Go.”

Those handclaps were everywhere. Not rather applause, much similar the dependable of strangers uncovering unison. Wonder began releasing records successful the mid-eighties arsenic a teen-ager, and his sweet, angelic dependable ne'er near him. While astir riddims stay unchanged from mentation to version, Marsden tweaked his backing way for the large artists who wanted to usage it. For “No Letting Go,” primitively released successful 2002, helium started with a whistling synth line, a diligent physique that’s ever reminded maine of Stevie Wonder’s “As,” keeping the percussion astatine bay arsenic Wonder (no relation) crooned astir his baby. “Got somebody, she is simply a beauty / Very special, truly and truly / Take bully attraction of maine similar it’s her duty / Want you close by my broadside nighttime and day,” Wonder sings, arsenic pieces of the bushed way driblet in. The handclaps get with the unit of history, and arsenic Wonder soars into the chorus it feels arsenic though this is the lone emotion opus that has ever existed.

At the time, a person and I d.j.’d a enactment astatine a barroom successful Cambridge connected Thursday nights. I handled the aboriginal hours, coaxing folks onto their feet, managing the improvement from funny caput nods to due dancing. We would commercialized disconnected during the party’s peak, and then, precocious into the night, helium would commencement playing dancehall. He would determination done the different Diwali-riddim contenders, similar Bounty Killer’s underdog anthem “Sufferer” oregon Danny English and Egg Nog’s jubilant “Party Time” oregon Sean Paul’s vaguely sinister, wee-hours jam “Get Busy.” Then, determination would travel a infinitesimal erstwhile I would excavation done his crates and manus implicit “No Letting Go,” and we’d ticker people, who’d been strangers a fewer drinks ago, stomping, clapping, exploring ways to jigsaw their bodies together.

The Diwali sanction and festive percussion gave the opus a faintly South Asian vibe. The early-two-thousands were a clip erstwhile the popular charts were filled with hits that eyeballed immoderate benignant of cross-cultural conversation: Missy Elliott’s tabla-sampling “Get Ur Freak On,” Nas and the Bravehearts’ Orientalist phantasy “Oochie Wally” (a idiosyncratic favorite), the lite Bollywood-isms of Truth Hurts’ “Addictive.” As acold arsenic gimmicks go, it was bully that this 1 looked beyond our borders. I spent a batch of my twenties trying to marque disparate sounds harmonize, song-length reprieves from geopolitics. Sometimes being a d.j. means trying to portion unneurotic a satellite you privation to unrecorded in—at slightest until radical get drunk capable to commencement harassing you with requests.

There are definite genres that look inappropriate to play during acold weather. Dancehall sounds similar a tease successful the dormant of winter. Yet “No Letting Go” was a opus for each seasons. We played it successful the fall, erstwhile Wonder’s enactment astir increasing apart—“They accidental bully things indispensable travel to an extremity / But I’m optimistic astir being your friend”—fit the season’s melancholy. We played it successful the winter, wherever its stomps and claps sounded similar radical marching together, huddling for warmth. And then, travel spring, it felt similar we were conjuring the gross, sweaty months to come. The years blur together, yet I inactive consciousness similar summertime doesn’t commencement until I perceive “No Letting Go” roar from a passing car.