At the 2015 Reggae Sumfest, the largest and most popular concert series in Jamaica, budding dancehall superstar J Capri (aka Jordan Phillips) delivered one of her last live performances. Since 1993, the stages of Sumfest in Montego Bay has been a pilgrimage site for dancehall and reggae fans, serving as an epicenter for Caribbean music. The lineups over the years resemble a timeline for dancehall's growing influence, hosting artists like Sean Paul, Shabba Ranks, and Rihanna. Capri’s invitation to perform was her first, and accompanied by a live band and dancers, she put on a show that validated the murmurings that she was dancehall’s next queen. In the span of a little over two years, she was riding high on one of the hottest streaks of singles and collaborations a dancehall artist has enjoyed in recent memory, and just settling back into the scene in Kingston after touring throughout Europe and parts of South America. She emerged from relative obscurity in 2013 with "Whine and Kotch," a breakthrough collaboration with Charly Black. The song was a number 1 hit on iTunes charts in seven countries, and the music video was viewed over 30 million times on YouTube.
At the end of November she lost control of her car along the Barbican Road in Kingston, suffering major injuries. On Sean Paul’s Facebook page, he asked his fans to donate blood to her in the University of West Indies Hospital. She was showing signs of improvement after a successful emergency surgery and blood drive. Two weeks later on December 4, she passed away, shocking the dancehall scene in Kingston and abroad. She was 23. Capri was planning on tours in the U.S. and Canada before the accident.
Her death went unnoticed for the most part in the U.S., but reactions on Twitter, Instagram, and in the comments section of her popular YouTube videos were filled with devastated disbelief. The mourning continues into this year as fans and artists alike continue to process her death. After Capri’s funeral, Lady Saw decided to take a hiatus from music, cancelling her current tour dates and ending long-running feuds with Tifa and Mack Diamond.
When "Whine and Kotch"came out, Capri had been making music seriously for less than a year and half after being discovered by riddim producer Tarik "Rvssian" Johnston. She quickly became a sought-after collaborator, and her follow up to "Whine and Kotch," "Pull Up to Mi Bumper," brought her a large international fanbase. A high profile collaboration with Vybz Kartel called "Mamacita" showed that she deserved a seat at the table among dancehall heavyweights.
Her solo work in "Reverse It" and "Likkle" proved that she never needed the aid of collaborators in the first place. Her voice and style were distinctive in a crowded and male-dominated field, but it was also redolent of the empowered and sex-positive works of artists like Tanya Stephens, Tifa, and Lady Saw. Polite society was abuzz about Jhené Aiko’s call to "eat the booty like groceries" last year, but dancehall artists from Stephens to Lady Saw to J Capri have celebrated an independent and radical female physicality that flew in the face of conservative values. Capri, in her short career, was contributing to a complicated but necessary discourse in Jamaica, about the freedom of expression women should have in music and sexuality.
In what is probably her best song, "Lyrics to the Song," Capri showcases everything that spoke to her deserved growing popularity. The track is somehow both allusive and assertive. She refuses to give up the "lyrics to the song" or the secrets that dictate her musical success to the male listener. Whatever love the world of men can offer her are redirected to the unknowable allure of her music. She refutes the idea that women are only props in the world of dancehall, and "Lyrics to the Song" is an affirmation that she was on the top.
It’s undeniable that dancehall is in the middle of a potentially big moment. The echos of dancehall rhythms run deep in both popular and experimental fare, from Kanye West proclaiming "I’m the new Shabba" in Yeezus, or in Rizzla’s rethinking of the music’s politically subversive roots in new radical queer contexts. Critics often paint with broad strokes in trying to figure out why dancehall hasn’t "made it," pointing to homophobia, misogyny, and lyrical aggression as hampering the genre’s crossover appeal. These critiques become less and less true, as the artists promoting dancehall are working hard to create something that is more inclusive. Popcaan emerged from 2014 with one of the best pop albums to come out of Kingston in years, and the style of dancehall he’s popularizing shed the image of the badman in favor of a more communal joyfulness. But it still feels, at the start of 2016, that the state of dancehall in America remains an open question. In the wake of J Capri’s death, the scene has lost a star who might have been another ambassador for a genre at a critical juncture.