Cham

Cham, recognized alternatively as Baby Cham, stands among the Caribbean’s most accomplished and widely respected dancehall performers—an achievement made all the more notable by the fact that he entered the scene while still a teenager. Favoring vocals over riddims that move at comparatively moderate tempos, he prioritizes intricate lyricism without avoiding the occasional crossover success. Partnering with the esteemed dancehall figure and hitmaker Dave “The Stranger” Kelly placed Cham at the forefront of the producer’s Madhouse label just as he started reaching American audiences in the first years of the 2000s.

Born Damian Beckett and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, he spent his childhood in the Marverly and Waterhouse neighborhoods. An uncle who maintained sound equipment inside a studio frequented by established dancehall artists such as Super Cat helped nurture his early musical interests. Around 1993 he finally met Kelly, yet the producer declined to commit to a sustained professional relationship until the aspiring artist completed his schooling. Spragga Benz took a different approach, collaborating with the young performer and proving instrumental in launching Cham’s career; the two recorded the duet “Cocomania” in 1994, which enabled Benz to obtain Cham’s first radio exposure when he was just sixteen.

Once school ended, Cham drew considerable attention throughout the dancehall community in the mid- to late 1990s by releasing a series of Kelly-produced singles, among them “Many Many,” “Man & Man,” and the provocative “Boom,” a track exploring oral sex that Jamaican authorities prohibited from live performance. Kelly and Cham assembled the 2000 double-disc set Wow… The Story, gathering many of those earlier successes alongside fresh recordings. Persistent effort eventually carried Cham into the U.S. market, where he introduced the suggestive crossover track “Vitamin S” in 2003. The release prompted a distribution agreement with Atlantic Records and a reissue of the single the following year. Approaching a level of visibility comparable to Sean Paul’s, Atlantic issued his major-label debut Ghetto Story in mid-August 2006, featuring guest appearances by Alicia Keys and Akon.

Cham remained largely absent from mainstream attention until 2012, when he returned with the singles “Wine” and “Tun Up” plus the Team Cham EP. The year after that he issued the standalone track “Fighter” alongside Damian Marley. His third album, Lawless, spent several years in development before appearing in the summer of 2017.