July 30, is the anniversary of Mad Cobra‘s Flex released by Columbia Records in 1992. The dancehall deejay dropped six albums between 1991 and 1992, before his album “Hard To Wet, Easy to Dry,” peaked at No. 125 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. That album owes its success to Flex which he co-wrote with Brian Gold.
The Clifton “Specialist” Dillion produced track was the lead single for the album, and his only song to date to appear on the Billboard Hot 100, which peaked at number 13 January 9, 1993.
At the time the song joined the likes of “I’d Die Without You” By PM Dawn at No. 5 and “I will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston was at No. 1. Flex also peaked at number one on the Billboard rap chart.
The ground breaking song laid the blueprint for future dancehall acts to use hardcore dancehall lyrics with hip hop infused beats and sexually charged themes. A formula followed by Dexta Daps, Kranium, Konshens, Gyptian, Sean Paul and Shaggy.
Nolan Baynes, director at 300 Entertainment and former MTV executive says Flex was like “I Need Love” by LL Cool J.
“Yes! It was very much like LL Cool J “I Need Love.” he says. “A super contrasting vibe on record. Aggressive street inspired music layered on traditional R&B music.”
That R&B music was “Just My Imagination” by the Temptations. Cobra tells how the R&B influence came about for the track and if it was left up to him, the song would have been more uptempo. Cobra was previously known for gun-touting songs like “Shoot to Kill”, “Merciless Bad Boy”, and “Ze Taurus“.
“I was trying to do it on a quick rhythm – one of the ‘Gigi’ sound rhythm. And the tape slow down. You know, sometimes the tape too tight or something and it start give this rrrrrrrr. So I was there (he starts to deejay slowly) ‘Fleeeeeexxx, tiimmmee tooo haaaveee seeeex”. Slow. And Sly (Dunbar) sey, ‘Hol’ on, hol’ on’. And Sly start to play Just My Imagination backwards,” Cobra told the Jamaica Gleaner.
That choice by Sly to flip an in studio error into new music, was genius and exposed the secret ingredient that hardcore dancehall artists were looking for to make it onto the Billboard chart.
“NY was having a heavy dancehall love affair during those times. Hip Hop was embracing it, collaborations between the genres were starting to take place. Dancehall was also spouting on college campuses, and non-Caribbean hit makers (a la, Houston, New Orleans, etc). It was the beginning of hybrid wave (hip hop/dancehall) … but the blending of a R&B soul beat w/ aggressive dancehall vocal was innovative and disruptive. Major labels were paying attention then,” Nolan told World Music Views.
He recalls that it was the first time New York bred people were able to fully appreciate what a Jamaican artist was saying.
“My hip hop loving friends cared about that record. It was unique and allowed them to hear their influence in our music. At that time a song like that was just different from anything else. Sonically it was well produced and people just loved it! Not just Caribbean folks! Cobra and the producers of the record were Trail Blazers,” Nolan told World Music Views.
Steve Urchin, former Island records executive and present manager to Sean Paul agrees with him.
“I think when Cobra came out with Flex and then him and Ritchie Stephens came out with Legacy, it was a definite first peak into what dancehall could sound like on the Billboard charts,” Steve Told World Music Views.
Steve breaks down the actual elements that may have made Flex crossover into the US market;
“An English chorus, something more understandable, a R&B feel to it, delivered in such a way that the genre could cross into areas where people didn’t understand patois and maybe didn’t understand the dancehall riddims as such, it was a definite crossover appeal to it.”
However Cobra says Flex wasn’t created deliberately to reach the US market, and he says he wrote his part on a plane.
“Flex was like a trial song. It was not like a planned song,” Cobra told the Jamaica Gleaner 5 years ago.
He says “The lyrics were written on a spit bag on a plane because I was on a flight coming back from New York. I was watching the television on the plane, and there was this woman doing this Soloflex exercise. She was on this Soloflex machine. So me say, ‘How this lady flex like she want to have sex?’ And me just jot it down. Me guh so, bam bam, have the idea on the bag, write ‘I rather wait …’ and rey. So me have the lyrics on the spit bag.”
Maxine Stowe, was the label A&R at Columbia Records who signed Cobra, while he was being managed by the producer of Flex, Clifton “Specialist” Dillon. We reached out to Specialist for a comment but he declined.
Maxine says she recalls controversy surrounding the track.
“There was some controversy associated with the track also being that of Boom Bye Bye that caused major controversy for Buju Banton & the Gay community,” she told World Music Views.
Both “Boom Bye Bye” and “Flex” were recorded at Penthouse Studios. As for who currently owns the masters for Flex? Stowe says, “Ownership most likely Columbia for Flex and Specialist owns Boom Bye Bye. I haven’t seen any independent putting out of Flex.”
