Mellow Yellow & Young Ranks – Herpes Take Over

1982, Jam Rock

More than anything else, Mellow Yellow (aka Handsy, Puppa Handsy, Hands Tight Man, or Yellow Hands) is best known for his complexion, being one of three albino deejays active in the early 80s, along with Yellowman and Purpleman. And like how Yellowman comes with Fathead in tow, Mellow Yellow comes with Young Ranks (aka Youngie). This is their only full-length LP but they did do a split with Yellowman (King Mellow Yellow Meet Yellowman), with Young Ranks uncredited.

This album wears its influences on its sleeves and then prints some of them on the sleeve. Herpes Take Over is a sequel to Diseases by Michigan & Smiley, Brown Girl is traditional, and then Rain and I’m Leaving (but not Run Run) are covers of tunes by Brigadier Jerry and John Denver (but not Delroy Wilson) respectively. Mellow Yellow & Young Ranks never take their work too seriously and are happy to deviate plenty from the source material. They set the terms for covers to occupy their mics, and even a very not-reggae tune like Brown Girl fits right in to their style on this album. The brown girl in the ring no longer looks like the sugar in a plum, plum, plum, instead she looks good from afar (not at short distances), then Youngie Ranks laughs, and they start to chat about ugly girls, including one African who you couldn’t even tell was a man or woman.

They touch up the lyrics on Rain (on the Answer riddim) by saying how it has “gone down the drain”, and then Run Run, as I said, has nothing to do with the Delroy Wilson tune. Instead it is a higher-energy cut telling bad boys (or as Yellow Hands calls them, ‘dutty n*ggers’) to run run, because police man a come, and the fun done. Puppa Hands then lets us know that some are robbers, some are rapists, and – and this is verbatim – “you never can trust nowadays rapist”. Gone are the good old days of trustworthy rapists. Of all reggae tunes, this is of course the one to be your introduction to Handsie & Youngie’s ‘whisper deejaying’ style, where they turn the volume down on their vocal chords to the point that you can start to hear them creak. Naturally it gets breathy. Unlike Errol Scorcher, who also does a wacky, quiet vocal style, the Hands Tight Man keeps his deejaying foundations rock-solid with his whisper deejaying and the delivery is (surprisingly) excellent. The riddim is ridden in fine style, but the juxtaposition of Mister Mellow sounding like he’s trying not to wake up his sleeping mother and the lyrical content is some brain bending sh*zz.

Immediately following this is We Hard, decidedly not a hard tune, but a good one, and even quieter than Run Run, with Young Ranks joining in to be the lowest-energy adlibber yet recorded in studio. “Tell them.” and “Rip it.” delivered with the enthusiasm of an immigration officer informing you which forms need to be filled out. And Puppa Handsie’s mother must be starting to toss and turn the way he has turned his volume right down. Lyrically the tune is a special dedication to Yellowman, with Yellowman 2 observing how the two of them favor, and wondering if they come from the same father. Later in Back Off he remarks that he and Youngie don’t favor, and that each of them come from a different father. You see, one is black and one is technicolor. The loose and casual vibes are in full force on this tune, one of my favourite details being Mellow Yellow pronouncing ‘we hot’ as ‘we hat’ just for the fun of it, even though it makes the lyric not rhyme.

My picks: Herpes Take Over, Run Run, We Hard, Proud A We
Bim count: 8 (including the very quiet one in Proud A We, a top-shelf bim for bim connoisseurs)