Tipsy Music Festival Day 2 at the National Botanical Gardens was a movie, and every movie needs a hero and a villain.
DJ Puffy and Jus Jay’s set was the hero of the show.
“That was not intermission, that set nearly put me out of commission!”
“That set, cawlennnnnnn, that was a set!”
“Nah, nah, nah, them now mash up de place!”
And those were just some of the reviews when the dynamic duo ended their 30-minute set, which felt like a high-energy nonstop seven-minute H.I.T session.
It was pace from the start to the finish.
But let’s rewind. Why exactly are DJ Puffy and Jus Jay the heroes in this movie?
To explain, we need to take you back. Not all the way back to the start of the show, but to prior to them taking to the stage.
In this movie, the villain was Surf Rat. Why would Loop say that? Well, where Puffy and Jus Jay had to rebuild the soca vibe ahead of the appearance of MONK, Mr Heh-ha, Mr Double M, Machel Montano, Surf Rat had to break and destroy the soca vibe. He had to take the crowd of over 10,000 from the pinnacle of Bunji Garlin and FayAnn Lyons-Alvarez’s Hard Fete with big flag going overhead like canopy down to the lower vibrations of reggae in preparation for Jamaican reggae Grammy Award-winning artiste Buju Banton, and it was ‘not an easy road’.
So, now that we have explained the pre-activities, once Buju Banton exited the stage, it was at this moment that Jus Jay hit the stage and introduced his cohost for the segment – DJ Puffy, who came straight off the jumbo jet from Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.
And the task they had may have been a difficult one for mere mortals, but joined by the soca trifecta for Crop Over 2023 of Leadpipe, Saddis and Grateful Co, plus de Daddy O-Kay Mole, they made it look like piece of cake.
The energy at the Gardens reached the sky when Leadpipe and Jus Jay did Brain Freeze, then the Sweet Talk Riddim artistes burst on to the stage – Saddis did Push Back and Grateful Go was in de Center. The trio were followed by the one and only Mr well, well, well Mole performing Breathe.
The four collectively were probably not on stage for seven minutes but their impact was phenomenal.
By the end of the set, the two deejays with their performance reiterated Puffy’s earlier statement and sentiment – “Barbados I love you. Barbados is the most beautiful place. I been telling people this for years and I think we gonna prove it this year, for real!”
