Why Rap Songs Are Always a Good Time to Toast

Fifty-three years ago, at a Bronx block party, hip-hop started with a toast. Well, not exactly. Not in conventional American terms, at least. Sure, folks were most definitely tossing shots back, and there was a lot to cheers to. But when Kingston, Jamaica-born DJ Kool Herc began interspersing his turntable spins with playful call-and-response shoutouts that evoked Jamaican toasting, a new fusion of the Black diaspora was born. 

Since that day, rappers and reggae voices have joined forces to blend Black American audio aesthetics with swagger straight from the island. For tracks like Kendrick Lamar’s “Blacker The Berry,” Jamaican DJ Assassin served up some energetic toasting in between KDot’s visceral verses. On his Richie Rich-assisted single “Heavy in the Game” (1995), 2Pac enlisted dancehall veteran Lady Levi to lace the chorus with some patois-inflected toasting. Meanwhile, in 1993, Super Cat enlisted The Notorious B.I.G. for an electric verse on “Dolly My Baby.” Before those collabs, the legendary Shabba Ranks toasted over a rap-infused track for a linkup with the great KRS-One. Separately, the genres pull from the same diasporic forces to create something inherently funky. Together, they form the best sort of self-contained eclecticism you can find in the world of music. The synergy makes sense when you consider hip-hop was, in part, born from a Jamaican bringing his traditions to the streets of NYC.

As an artist who relocated from Kingston to Brooklyn’s East Flatbush at age 18, it’s a connection that Shaggy, who collaborated with folks like Grand Puba and Dave East for cross-genre tracks over the years, has seen mutate and expand for decades. 

“[Hip-hop] was heavily influenced by Jamaican toasting and Jamaican dancehall. It’s always been seamless,” says the dancehall legend. That sort of cross-cultural pollination is a natural product of proximity. You can see it when that white stoner you know gets dreadlocks. You might see it on your sober friend who’s got a Bob Marley poster. Even within hip-hop, you’ve seen it from rappers who adopt aspects of the lingo even if they aren’t technically Jamaican. “Even the Fugees — you look at them, Wyclef is Haitian, but he was heavily influenced by Jamaican culture,” Shaggy says. 

In 2010, Nas and Damian “Jr Gong” Marley reinforced the hip-hop-reggae tradition with Distant Relatives, a joint album that blends Marley’s jagged melodies with Nas Escobar’s athletic raps. At their best, the two collapsed the distance between the cultures for tracks that could be thundering (“As We Enter”) or serene “Count Your Blessings.” The project received mixed reviews from critics, but the legend linkup proves the kinship of the genres. It’s one that will, in one way or another, continue. 

Shaggy says it’s Jamaica’s charismatic culture that inspires people to pull elements from its music and fashion. “Jamaica’s just got a cool factor,” he says. “When you see a Jamaican walk, it’s different. The attitude is different. The swag is different. The way they talk, the accent is different,” he says. “The color, the clothes, the dressing, the attitude, the walk, the weed — there’s a lot of it that’s cool. The dreadlocks. The Rastafarian culture. Everything about it is just different. It’s all of those things that make it work.”

He notes that reggaeton, like hip-hop, is arguably an evolved — or expanded — form of Jamaican music. And years after its inception, reggaeton artists have developed subgenres like Latin Trap. Similarly, Jamaican toasting evolved into DJs that rhymed, and DJs that rhymed became rappers that rhymed. And now, the cultures are involved in a continual aesthetic and sonic exchange that dates back several decades. It’s nothing new, and it won’t end any time soon.

“Everything in life is a hybrid. Nothing is original. Music is music,” Shaggy says. “We’re not inventing it. We’re reinventing it.”