Clifford Smith, a.k.a. Mr Vegas, is one of the most relevant artist in Reggae/Dancehall Worldwide scene. Born in Kingston in 1974, since his young age he showed a great interest in music, especially during high school at lunch time when he used to entertain his classmates (mostly girls!) with his impressing lyrics like in a “little show”.
Vegas appears on scenes for the first time with his single “Nike Air” (1997) and “Heads High” (1998), reaching first positions in five different continents’ charts. His role is important not just as singer, but also for his connection with the dancers, as him being the lyricist of some of the most famous dancing tunes.
The last one is “Aji Bounce” (2015), made in honor of Aji that created the homonym step. Dancers from all over the World participated to the video shooting: Latonya Style, Kimiko Versatile, “our Italian proud” Alessandra Alevanille DHQ, Irie Queen (Spain), Kiss Kiss (Japan), Aga Morko (Poland), Kim Weezy, Colo Colo, Trice, Killabean, Craig Black Eagles, Unique Rockaz, Shakespeare and Queen Lateesha, showing how to make the various steps.
There are other new different steps that are named in the song: Gas, Gimme way, Lift and Lowe mi and, at the end of the official version of the video there is another tune called “Dancing time“ where steps like Watchi Wiya, Lowe mi and Boom wine are also all named and showed from the dancers.
Vegas already reached an amazing success with dancing tune like: ”Take weh Yuself” in which video we find Keiva DHQ performing; “Gallis-Sassa step” (2009) with steps that takes same names from the songs Gallis swing and Sassa step; “Tamale” (2002) where are named steps like Charlie Chaplin and Parachute; in “Round di clock” (2014) (on the Clock Riddim), Vegas created an happy, captivating and social tune, in which video a mix of old/middle/new school steps are showed: Urkle dance, World dance, Bogle, Down di flank, Eva fresh eva clean, Cow foot, One drop and Mosquito net.
Strong is his passion “fi di gyals”, infact he created great tunes like “Hot Wuk” (2007) with the explicit sexual meaning of “best sexual experience”, which named the step Hot Wuk itself; and other tunes like “Bruck it down” (2011) and “Selfie” (2014).
As a very versatile artist he is able to represent the different aspects of Jamaican culture with tunes that go from “Daggering”, that refers to the Daggering (Jamaican dance with moves alluding to sex and fight between a man and a woman); to “Sweet Jamaica: (2011) (featuring Shaggy and Josey Wales), which is a real anthem to Jamaica with an emotional video that shows the amazing nature of this beautiful island.
