Reggaeton Lawsuit: Clevie Talks About The Impact Of Dancehall On The Reggaeton Genre

The trained drummer spoke with World Music Views exclusively about his career as a dancehall record producer from the early days to his influence on Reggaeton culture.

“When I heard ‘So Jah Seh’ from Bob Marley we started seeking out that technology,” which at the time was rare for a reggae song to use a drum machine versus a live band. “Most people weren’t in agreement with that technology move until we heard King Jammyz ‘Sleng Teng Riddim,’ and we said ‘wow someone else had that vision,’ he said.

“We made ‘Sweet Reggae Music,’ a track for Nitty Gritty which went straight into the British Charts and that cemented out view that what we were doing could work and we formed a team there (at Jammyz) for his production camp and all ou​r songs became hits.”

As Trap Dancehall takes shape, there is much debate about the difference between reggae and dancehall. Clevie, being one of the first innovators of the faster reggae music, explained to WMV what is the difference between “dancehall” and “dance hall.”

“During that period of making tracks for King Jammyz, we considered we were just making reggae music, we never gave it a name but later on being associated with music being played and accepted among the Dance Hall audience and being accepted by the Dance Hall sound system, people gave it the name, Dancehall Music” he recalls.

Still there are some reggae purists who refuse to call dancehall anything other than reggae. Indeed Damian Marley told WMV that what we have come to call dancehall is simply fast reggae.

“For me as a pioneer of the genre that had specific beats and patterns or in some cases there might not have been a beat different but the attitude made it different. A song like ‘No, No, No’ by Dawn Penn for instance the feel was a little more aggressive in the mix that fell perfectly into the dancehall genre although it wasn’t ‘buff baff beat.’ I realize you can mix reggae music with an attitude that made it acceptable as dancehall.”

“Dancehall I would say is an attitude,” he said.

“I considered it being music that was played and established in the Dance Halls-the place, but identifying that there is a rhythmic component being created which was different from the one drop reggae, we moved on to remove the sample and join the two words together to call it “Dancehall Music.”

Cleveland Browne

Steely, real name Wycliffe Johnson passed away in September 2009 of a heart attack at age 47 but files uncovered by WMV showed that Steely & Clevie’s life’s work is alleged to have been what latin producers and music makers turned into Reggaeton without their permission.

Clevie, who had his manager in tow as we conducted the interview is tight lipped about the lawsuit as the case is still ongoing but he recalls how the Fish Market riddim was made out of a need for something new. He states that there is a hidden note built in the riddim. That note among other things is the subject of the copyright case that their company filed against several reggaeton hitmakers.

“Steelie came to the studio with the vision to make something new, I also had a vision to make something new instead of the same ‘Buff Baff” of the 70s. When we made “Punany​ (Riddim)” that was a new thing and we wanted to move on again,” he recalls.

The suit, filed in the California Central District court in 2021 October had to be resubmitted in March according to the documents. Louis Fonsi’s  Despacito, Bésame, Calypso with Stefflon Don, Date La Vuelta with Sebastián Yatra, Nicky Jam, Échame La Culpa, Imposible, Perfecta, Sola, and Vaciois are alleged to have original elements from Steely and Clevie’s Fish Market riddim A.K.A the Dem Bow riddim made popular by Shabba Ranks with a song of the same name.

“I had this beat in mind and Steely had some phrases and the two of them connected. They weren’t sounds that were readily available and we laid down what became the Fish Market, it needed something more so it had a little ghost note that was important for the feel of the riddim, then Steely played on the first beat of the bar, we used a B flat note. We recognize that some samples were taken and that B-Flat note was there,” Clevie recalled to WMV how the riddim was made.

Rights holders of the music, Universal Music Publishing, Warner Music, Universal Music Latin Entertainment, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, are all named as part of the suit.

“Fish Market,” is a registered US Copyright by the Jamaican duo.

The complaint also notes that in 1990, Mr. Browne and Mr. Johnson collaborated with Shabba Ranks to produce the song “Dem Bow,” which was a huge club hit and helped establish Reggaeton music. The instrumental version of “Dem Bow” it says is an alternative mix of “Fish Market,” using the same multi-track recording, and is widely recognized as a foundational element of Reggaeton.

One of the 40 songs associated with Daddy Yankee which is part of the ​lawsuit “Despacito” recently achieved a milestone of 8 billion streams on YouTube. Originally written by Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Panamanian singer Erika María Ender Simoes it was partly acquired by HarbourView Equity Partners in a $100 million deal for Fonsi’s catalogue.

The remix for “Despacito” with Justin Bieber reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 where it stayed  for 16 consecutive weeks 5 years ago. “Despacito” also topped the Hot Latin Songs chart for a record 56 (non-consecutive) weeks, spending the most weeks at No. 1 for any title since the chart’s inception in 1986 according to Billboard.

In 2018, ‘Despacito’ earned the Guinness World Record for being the first video to reach 5 billion YouTube views.

Fonsi’s lawyers have responded to the suit in the documents obtained by WMV that their client did not engage in any type of infringement, and that “there is no similarity between the works.” They also deny having sufficient information to respond to the suit.

Watch Clevie’s full interview on WMV YouTube.