Government Name: Dameon Beckett
Born: Sherlock Crescent, Kingston, JA
Age: 27
Genre: Dancehall/hiphop
Whenever an established artist changes their nom de guerre, as Cham has recently done, dropping the “Baby” from his name to signify his new grown-ass status, they run the risk of throwing off the following they’ve built for themselves.
Reggae fans, however, are already thoroughly familiar with the new Cham through the tune called “Ghetto Story,” an introductory course on the crime and political strife that has plagued Jamaica since the turbulent ‘80s, interwoven with Cham’s personal history of cousins and childhood friends lost to violence. The track has dominated the dancehall market for most of 2006 and made his new LP one of the most anticipated reggae projects in years. In the process, it has also inspired some of the biggest names in R&B, from Alicia keys to Akon, to bless it with remixes, adding their own bios to the universal story of struggle that Cham rendered in yard-specific terms.
“I’m the type a’ individual that believe the artis’ is a mirror a society,” he says, “so you never get me writing a song saying ‘the cow jump over the moon’ or ‘3 little birds sit on a wall’ y’unnerstand? Something that I’ve written, it’s always like something that I’ve experienced.” If taken at his word Cham must have experienced some of the best life has to offer as well as the worst, since the LP finds him not only running down his gangster credentials but also chatting bass to the mid-range of several lovely ladies. Most notably he makes Rihanna’s heart go “Boom Boom” on the track of the same name, substituting the gunman taunts of “Wah Dem a Seh” and “Don’t Test Me” with boasts about his “mean foot massage.” In between his 2 modes as Don and Don Juan are Cham’s experiments with Jamaican hiphop, proving on tracks like “Rudeboy Pledge” and “Bring It On” with Chicago singer Majic Massey that he is an MC as well as a Deejay.
Just in case you didn’t get it though, tucked in towards the close of the album is a track called simply “CHAM,” sort of a ragga-fied take on Eminem’s “My Name Is…,” designed to stamp into every listeners brain the one-syllable answer to the question: “Who’s your daddy?”
