Josey Wales says he first deejayed Kingston Hot in 1979 or 1980 "inna de heat". And although Jamaica was not experiencing the big weather chill that it has seen over the past few days, he still was not referring to the upward movement of the mercury in the thermometer.

The man known as 'The Colonel' was talking about the much more rapid movement of lead and the bodies that were left to chill in the streets after the bullets made impact.

"(I mean) Politically hot. If a man inna him green an go down so him get caught up. If a man inna him orange and him go up so him get caught up," Josey Wales said. Kingston Hot was conceived in the run-up to the tumultuous 1980 general election, when over 800 Jamaicans - a staggering figure at the time, long before four-figure yearly murder counts became passé - were murdered in the run-up to the general election which ended the Michael Manley-led democratic socialism experiment.

Twenty-seven years later, Wales says, "We get the residue now and it hurting. I was not a prophet like the great Bob Marley, but I sight up a whole heap of things coming."

Kingston Hot paints a broad picture of life in the capital at the time before it zeroes in on the personal, Wales deejaying:

"The youths make a hustling by selling kisko pop

Dreadlocks a jog inna them sweatsuit top

Bad boy and police no stop fire shot

If me never skill me woulda reach Dovecot

Inna criss board box wid looking glass pon top

Nine wood screw hol' it dung at dat

Kinsgton hot

Lawd a God me say Kingston hot"

He first deejayed it at a dance promoted by Jim Sport at Wellington Street Centre, off North Street in downtown Kingston. The original lyric was expanded for the recording session for Henry 'Junjo' Lawes at Channel One in 1983 - the same year that the People's National Party (PNP) declined to participate in a snap general election. Wales points out that "most of the songs written those times were not penned in terms of composition on paper. They were just freestyle, dancehall style on Stur-Gav. Producer take a liking and it become a song".

'Hot' areas

Josey Wales says Kingston Hot "was a commentary on the actions and the state and the structure of Jamaica at the time". He reels out the especially hot areas at the time - downtown Kingston, Kingston 11, 12 and 13, Tower Hill, Waterhouse, ****burn Pen, Drewsland, Majesty Gardens, Payne Land. "All those people were at each other's throats politically," he said. "Is the system set it that way. Is not the brethren's desire. Is the 'politrickshan'. I was pointing out how cruel it was."

Although in the 1970s there were highly visible Rastafarians, including Bob Marley, jogging in their sweat suits, which were popular street wear at the time (Freddie McGregor did 'Jogging'), Wales says that line was just part of setting the scene and not specific to anyone.

"Me jus' a show you how the city is made up of so much people. Is four introduction of people," he said, identifying the youths, the dreadlocks, the police and the bad boys.

Then there is he and the skill which allowed him to escape being killed. In the second verse Josey Wales deejays:

"Something happen me mad fe cry

When me tell you this that's no lie

Me wake up in the morning about 3:30

Get out me coffee fe make me tea

Bad boy come a buss up shot after me

Them kill me pickney an' me ol granny

Kingston hot."

Josey Wale said while that shooting incident did happen in Tower Hill as is outlined in the lyrics, the killing of his grandmother and child is an embellishment. However, Wales had been shot twice, on February 3, 1978, at 83 Waltham Park Road where he got seven bullets (one of which is still lodged in the left side of his body) and on February 5, 1997, in St Ann.

Dancehall anthem

The Colonel remembers that he met Eek-A-Mouse on the day he voiced Kingston Hot. While it did "pretty well" (though not a number-one song) on the charts, Kingston Hot became an anthem in the place it was created - the dancehall.

Now, although the body count from general crime is much higher, the intensity of violence that indicates deep-seated political instability has receded. However, Josey Wales says "it only calm down. The heat has been turned down and there is no blazing fire, but you can still smell smoke. That means fire is still in the furnace. That means fire is still there".

"The good thing is, it is not political anymore. The bad thing is, it is senseless. We have no reason why we are fighting. At least back then we could say we were fighting because we were partisan," Josey Wales said.

• Few songwriters take on Kingston

While parts of Kingston - notably the 'garrison' areas - and some of its more striking residents have consistently made their way into popular song, relatively few songwriters have taken on Jamaica's capital as a whole.

Ironically, two such songs, the 1970 Kingston Town by Trinidadian-turned-Jamaican Lord Creator done over by British band UB40 in 1990 and Italy-born Albarosie's 2009 song of the same title but of different composition, were done by non-Jamaicans.

In Kingston Town, Lord Creator speaks to the city's softer side, singing:

"The night seems to fade

But the moonlight lingers on

There are wonders for everyone

The stars shine so bright

But they're fading at the dawn

There is magic in Kingston Town

Oh Kingston town

The place I love to be"

'kill some city'

However, singing about an attempt to pen peace closer to the end of the decade that changed the city forever, Peter Tosh renamed Kingston in his verbal deconstruction style. He sang:

"Do you remember the peace treaty

Oonu sign in a Kill Some city?

Do you remember that peace treaty

Them sign in a Kill Some city?"

Later in the song, Tosh's reworking of Kingston City takes on a scatological strain.

Chalice is best known for the uptempo Pocomania Day and the tearjerker Still Love You, among other hits, but their mid-1990s album Decade contains the song Heroes, which speaks to the dangerous underbelly of Kingston with:

"Kingston's streets are so dear

Yet a cancer grows in our society

And they're poisoning the young one's minds

With chemicals, guns

Is this the way to raise your daughters

Or to raise your sons?"

Albarosie also goes to the tougher side of Kingston, but in a more descriptive way rather than taking a philosophical approach, deejaying "is a rude boy town, it's Kingston town". He continues:

"Some man no have a manners still a try fe beg a ting

Sun a bun traffic its a slow riddim

JCF a move rough them must be M16

Some man a drive up an dung them have de lates' ting

Machine fit inna dem jeans a show off girls an bling

Smell of marijuana round the corner them juggling

One madman get him food straight out a de garbage bin."

However, the women are not left out, as Albarosie observes:

"The gal dem pants tight like rubber suit."

- MC