Newfoundlander one of several top Cdn DJs spinning ragga jungle

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This article was published 03/12/2006 (6898 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. (CP) – A dread-locked Russell Soper lays a record onto the turntable, churning out one of his favourite tracks at an ear-rattling volume.

Soper, who hails from the unlikely outport of Little Heart’s Ease in eastern Newfoundland, is one of several Canadian DJs at the forefront of an electronic music genre known as ragga jungle.

At 12, Soper began spinning records on a turntable kit given to him by a British DJ who had moved into town. The setup didn’t work too well, but that didn’t stop him from mimicking the DJs he saw on hip-hop videos.

Lured by the bright lights of bigger cities five years later, Soper became a party nomad. He moved to Toronto and New York in the heyday of raves, exposed to house, techno and drum and bass.

That led him to the subgenre of ragga jungle, a niche sound heavily influenced by reggae and dance hall that can reach’0 beats per minute.

For the unacquainted, think elements of Damian Marley’s ubiquitous 2005 hit “Welcome to Jamrock,” sped up to the tempo of a popular hip-hop song, such as 50 Cent’s “In Da Club.”

“Then you’d take that and for every one beat, there’s two,” Soper explains from his St. John’s home studio, where you’ll find an eclectic mix of vinyl ranging from Stevie Wonder to Jamiroquai and DJ Q-Bert.

The grownup club kid, now 31, unapologetically admits he was initially drawn to ragga jungle as a youngster through the drug scene.

“It’s what got me into the scene, what led me to discover this music, so I have no regrets there,” Soper says, referring to late night benders fuelled by a chemical cocktail of ecstasy and acid.

“But at the same time it’s either you keep living like that and eventually become a casualty of it, or you move on and you figure out how you can still work yourself into this world.”

“In his early 20s, Soper, whose love for the club scene is evident in the tattoos on his arms that depict a DJ performing for a crowd, laid off the drugs and focused on his music.

“I barely drink at this point,” says Soper, a.k.a. Russtafari.

Along with Montreal’s DJ Krinjah and Debaser of Toronto, Russtafari is part of a small group of Canadian turntable artists who are blazing a trail in the ragga jungle world with their own remixes of popular reggae songs.

“The biggest names in the world right now are Canadians,” says Soper, a graphic designer by day.

While that may be true, Soper is quick to add that ragga jungle is not one of the more lucrative styles of music to pursue. He estimates he earns seven cents per record, and his total sales haven’t exceeded 1,000 albums.

“There’s not a lot of money to be made in this because the scene is so small,” he laughs.

But that hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm for the music. He has performed at nightclubs in Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Winnipeg, Calgary and even the French territory of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, south of Newfoundland.

Soper released his self-titled third album in October, which he says has already sold 600 copies.

“I’m excited to see where this one goes.”