Lady Saw ...the real Muma of Best Of The Best All Woman

By Joan Jackson

Queen of the dancehall, Lady Saw, showed that she is definitely in a class by herself, when she rose above the ‘almshouse’ and gave memorable performances in the US on September 19 in the Bronx and the 20th in LA at the Best Of The Best All Woman showcase.
For various reasons, the event in the Bronx got off to a late start and with about ten minutes remaining for the show to end, it was left up to Macka Diamond and Lady Saw (in that order) to bring the curtains down. However, deejay Macka Diamond didn’t respond when she was being introduced as the next act, so Lady Saw entered centre-stage and got down to pleasing the patrons.
Lady Saw is indeed a hard act to follow on any stage show and in the Bronx, she had the fans in the palm of her hands. She totally connected with patrons with a repertoire that included her new hot song ‘Jealous’. All those inside the venue were given a shock, however, when Saw’s performance was interrupted with a healthy string of curse words from deejay Macka Diamond who was given a mic. Apparently Macka was upset that Lady Saw had gone on stage before her and the girl from the Diamond District was transformed in something that was certainly far from precious.
Fortunately, she soon realised that the explicit curse words were not doing her any justice, especially since Lady Saw was acting like a real Lady and did not respond in like manner. Macka wise up and changed the pace, did her songs for which she is best known such as ‘Hulla Hoop’ ‘Money O’ and ‘Bun Him’ and got a good response. She then went on to big up Lady G, who had performed earlier and Lady Saw.
Among the other female artistes who performed at the shows were veteran dancehall princess Spice, and Queen Paula.
The Bronx show was, unfortunately poorly attended and not even last-minute by efforts by the promoter to air the event on underground radio stations made any difference. With just a few patrons and hoping that others will eventually come out, the event failed to start on time.
After a long wait, the first act to take the stage Queen Paula, who was all hyped up but failed to connect with the small crowd who by now had grown restive. As she launched an attack on Spice, she got a resounding boo. When the deejay saw that it wasn’t going to work out, she told the patrons that she “loved them” and that the “mic was not working right” before departing the stage.
Veteran deejay of the pack, Lady G, showed why she is still able to give delightful performances. Not known for outrageous lyrics, she woke the place when she drew for a lyrics in which she deejayed “Nuh gal cyaan teck off mi panty...” getting crazy forwards. Because of time constraint, she wrapped up her short stint and exited the stage.
Lady Saw, when contacted about the incident, said she found Macka Diamond’s behaviour “very strange” as she was the sort of persons who used to big up all female artistes. It seems like somebody is drawing her into ‘passa passa’. “I just told Spice not to let them draw her out because they are looking hype off her.”