For all the hit songs he worked on, Phillip Smart remains one of dancehall music’s enigmas. The Jamaican engineer/producer was pivotal to that genre’s success in the tri-state area during the 1980s and 1990s.
‘Hotta This Year’, a compilation album released on April 18 by C&I Jah Bless Records, revisits one of his biggest productions. It contains eight songs, all built around a remix of ‘Hot This Year’, the 1991 hit song by Dirtsman which Smart produced.
Smart, who died from cancer in New York in 2014 at age 60, was instrumental in the rise of dancehall artistes based in the Big Apple. The most noted of those aspirants is Shaggy, who recorded his breakthrough single, ‘Oh Carolina’, at Smart’s HC&F Recording Studio in Long Island.
‘Hotta This Year’ contains songs like ‘Call on Me’ by Shaggy, Crissin, Olaf Blackwood and Kartel Monttana; ‘Back it Up’ by Charly Black, ‘If I Had a Wish’ by Maxi Priest and ‘Hotta This Year’ by American rapper, Maino.
Dirtsman, older brother of Papa San, built his reputation on sound systems in their hometown of Spanish Town, Jamaica, before exploding with ‘Hot This Year’ in 1991. He was killed by gunmen two years later.
Smart was a protege of legendary studio engineer Osbourne “King Tubby” Ruddock. He migrated to the United States in 1976 and made his name as a broadcaster on WNYU radio station and an engineer at HC&F Recording Studio which he co-founded in 1982 with Michael McDonald, his brother-in-law.
Some of the songs Smart was engineer for include ‘Kuff’ by Shelly Thunder, ‘Murderer’ by Barrington Levy and Audrey Hall’s ‘One Dance’. McDonald, Ian Clough, Shane Hoosong and Dwayne Johnson are co-producers of ‘Hotta This Year’.
