Oliver: Dirtsman - Mi Gun Nah Stick (23 February 1992)

Strictly speaking, this isn't the exact version played by Peel on 23/2/92, which featured a few more repeated lines of the title before launching into the track itself, but I liked it too much not to include it.

My relationship with dancehall music has become considerably more complicated since I started looking up  Rasta patois.  The realisation that Bunny General was carrying on like some kind of Carribean fusion of Norman Tebbit and Nigel Farage was a considerable shock.  I briefly entertained hopes that Mi Gun Nah Stick might be a sex song about the difficulties of getting it up, what with the "B'pum-pum" refrain (pum-pum refers to female genitalia) but with the song abounding with references to 38s, magazines, iron pills and "comedy" gun shots, I then had to try and work out whether the song was pro or anti gun.  If it was a hip-hop track around the same theme, how would I feel?  The speed of Dirtsman's toasting has left me floundering on what his intentions were.  However, the fact he also cut a track called Gun Legalise! suggests where his sympathies lay.  Sadly, he would become one of the large number of Carribean musicians who met violent ends when he was robbed and killed in December 1993.

Again, it all comes back to whether choices should be motivated by what the 16 year old me or the 40 year old me likes, and whose moral compass should guide the decision.  Unfortunately, at either age, I would have been shallow enough to include this because I love the way it works Nick Nack Paddy Whack into the melody.

Video courtesy of 1dubplate.