UPTOWN TOP RANKING
Two Jamaican schoolgirls answered a deejay record over an older Alton Ellis foundation and wound up at No. 1 in Britain. Althea & Donna made riddim culture sound effortless, funny and completely their own.
Althea Forrest and Donna Reid recorded “Uptown Top Ranking” for Joe Gibbs in 1977 while they were still teenagers. The record answered Trinity’s “Three Piece Suit,” which itself rode a new version of Alton Ellis’ “I’m Still in Love With You” rhythm. That chain is Jamaican version culture in miniature: an older song becomes a riddim, a deejay voices it, then two young women answer back. The reply escaped the dance and crossed into British pop, reaching No. 1 on the UK chart in February 1978. Its success was unusual, but the method behind it was deeply normal in Jamaica: records speaking directly to other records on shared musical ground.