Eek-A-Mouse
No one else bends syllables quite like Eek-A-Mouse. His “biddy-beng” singjay language turned early-1980s dancehall into cartoon, warning, melody and rhythm at the same time.
Ripton Hylton recorded before becoming Eek-A-Mouse, but the new identity and his work with producer Henry “Junjo” Lawes made him one of early dancehall’s most unmistakable voices. Over Roots Radics rhythms, “Wa-Do-Dem,” “Virgin Girl,” “Anarexol” and “Ganja Smuggling” mixed singing, deejaying, invented vocables and street observation. The voice can sound comic on first contact, yet the songs often carry violence, poverty and unease beneath the play. Eek-A-Mouse helped make singjay performance feel like a language of its own rather than an uncertain midpoint between singer and deejay.