Badda General x ZJ Liquid “Curfew (S.O.T.U.)”
- Admin
- Apr 9, 2021
- 1 min read
“Curfew (S.O.T.U.)”
“As a selector from longtime, me always tout the girl dem and hype them inna dancehall,” ZJ Liquid told me a few years back. His breakout hit “Wifey Walk Out” spoke on real-life relationship drama, stirring controversy in the spirit of fun and launching him as a serious recording artist as well as an on-air personality and producer for his own H20 label.
In 2021 Liquid and Badda General have been a roll with a series of wicked conversational collaborations, starting with “Barrel” and “State of the Union.” The songs unfold with the artists trading lines as if speaking on the telephone — in the tradition of Busy Signal’s “The Reasoning” and Govana’s popular “Convo” series. Liquid and Badda’s latest track is “Curfew,” which speaks to the pent-up frustration of people living under pandemic lockdown in a way that’s uniquely Jamaican yet relatable all over the world.
“How it ah look fe the Easter?” Badda asks. “Bwoy this year nuh look good fe a cheater,” Liquid replies. “After nobody can get bun … the whole country lock down.” The line is a clever play on words — bun is a popular Easter treat in Jamaica, as well as slang for cheating on your partner (or “burn”).
In this moment when dancehalls are severely restricted, songs like “Curfew” are an important outlet until life returns to something like normal. In the meantime, adversity can inspire creativity, as this song demonstrates. “We need back Jamaica,” Badda says on the hook. “Every square every inch and every acre.”
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