| Don Dada | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Super Cat |
| Cover: | Don Dada (album).jpg |
| Released: | 1992 |
| Genre: | Dancehall[1] |
| Label: | Columbia |
| Prev Title: | Cabin Stabbin |
| Prev Year: | 1991 |
| Next Title: | Good, the Bad, the Ugly & the Crazy |
| Next Year: | 1994 |
Don Dada is an album by the Jamaican musician Super Cat, released in 1992.[2] [3] It was his first album for a major label, and also one of the first dancehall albums for a major label.[4] [5] The album title refers to Super Cat's nickname.[6]
The album peaked at No. 37 on Billboards Top R&B Albums chart.[7] Super Cat promoted it with North American and Japanese tours.[8] [9]
"Nuff Man a Dead" first appeared on the Dancehall Reggaespanol compilation.[10] Heavy D rapped on "Them No Worry We".[11] It was Super Cat's intention to record an album that appealed to both a Jamaican dancehall audience and an American hip hop audience.[12]
The Milwaukee Sentinel wrote: "Mixing the latest dancehall styles with phrasing reminiscent of pioneers such as U Roy, I Roy, Big Youth and Dillinger, Super Cat makes some of the most refreshing (and interesting) Jamaican dance music in a long time."[13] Newsday called the album "a bracing collection of tough rhythms, tougher lyrics and a pocketful of contradictions."[14] The Times concluded that, "in much the same way that rap glories in its tuneless, declamatory style of vocalese, so the hardcore dance-hall style reduces reggae almost entirely to rhythm and rhyme; all harangue and no harmony."[15]
USA Today determined that "the rapid-fire rapper serves up equal measures of social conscience and disco fever"; the paper later listed Don Dada as the eighth best R&B album of 1992.[16] [17] The Philadelphia Inquirer deemed the album "a deft mixture of rapping and singing supported by intelligent and not overly repetitive tracks."[18]
AllMusic wrote that "the recurring ability of the songs to consistently provide a simple groove for Super Cat to fervently rap over the top of is amazing, and the virtuosity with which he can constantly provide the necessary vocal concoctions is noteworthy."