Shabba Ranks is a famous musician famous for his epic style in the genre’s of reggae, dancehall, ragga and so on. He is from Jamaica and he is especially good at dancehall, a Jamaican music type, it’s like reggae with faster pace.
Early years
Shabba Ranks isn’t actually called just Shabba. It’s his artist name. He is actually called Rexton Rawlston Fernando Gordon, but this really isn’t catchy so he got it changed later when he became famous.
He was born on January 17th 1966 in Sturgetown. This is a part of the biggest parish in Jamaica called St.Ann.
His mother’s name is Mama Christie and his father is Ivan Gordon. The family was always very supportive of his work and although they were not musicians, they liked music a lot.
When he was only eight, he had to move to Trenchtown, but a bad part: the Kingston ghetto.
However, he never let anyone else influence him because he knew what his call was and he couldn’t make it if he was a dealer or an addict.
Shabba’s influences were Charlie Chaplin, General Echo,Yellowman and Josey Wales. The fact that Wales later taught him about deejay career was very shocking, but he absolutely loved it.
Career development
He was one of the people to become famous pretty easily because people liked him right away. It was a mutual love between the stage and him. He really enjoyed the attention too.
Shabba became famous by rapping and he didn’t sing at all! People who are into dancehall usually start their career out like that.
Josey Wales, a famous deejay, took him for guidance and he decided to show him how he can become a deejay himself. This intruiged young Ranks and he therefore decided to give it a shot.
His international career didn’t begin until the 1980s, when reggae became famous because of the “spirit of the time” which was relaxed, enjoyable.
Some of his friends became famous too: Cocoa Tea and Crystal.
His first single was called “Head under Suffer’s Feet” and it was released in 1985. This was the first move he made into making his career. This song is actually what intrigued the famous deejay Josey Wales.
In his earlier years of career, he figured out some collaborations would be helpful and therefore he did one with Chuck Berry, one with KRS-One and one with Chubb Rock. This all helped him gain fans.
In 1991, he finally got a contract by a label and it was with Epic Records.
His reggae influence can be best heard in his song “Dem bow” from the beginning of 1990. It’s a song produces by Bobby Dixon and it became widely popular because of the very catchy tune.
It was especially noted by Puerto Rican people who liked the freestyle in it and soon “Dembow” was the name referring to the Puerto Rican reggae.
It became one of the main characteristics of it and Shabba’s work will live forever because of it. It is one of his biggest achievments.
Outside of Jamaica, his most popular songs were those that fuse reggae with some other genre. People on other continent’s weren’t really ready to accept a whole new genre, but they could use a twist to it.
Some of the popular hits were “Respect”, “Wicked inna Bed”, “Ting A Ling”, “Pirates Anthem” and so on. These were all made in the early 1990s.
In 1993, he got involved into TV work because his song ended up on the Addams Family Values CD. He made his own version of the previously featured song “Family Affair” and soon his third album got released.
All of this happened quick because he had to use up the publicity he had.
Still working with Epic Records, he published A Mi Shabba in 1995. The album was badly received amongst people and Shabba didn’t know exactly why.
His label soon unsigned him and he was left to produce music on his own. He didn’t feel threatened by it, he knew that he could still make great music.
That year, in 1996, he won two Grammy Awards and these were all for the first albums he made. It was still a mystery to him why people didn’t like his new work.
Shabba was very smart, he decided to focus on his older work and publish a “Greatest Hits” compilation which was called Shabba Ranks and Friends. This was published in 1999 and got better reviews.
He took a pause from his career in order to regain his old thoughts and style.
However, in 2007 he was featured on a song called “Clear The Air” by the famous Busta Rhymes, so it was a great deal.
To make things even better, and more popular, Akon was featured too!
Shabba decided to give his career another try and that’s when he published a single called “None A Dem”. It was in Spring of 2011.
In 2012, he decided to make a collaboration song with Tech N9ne, He was featured on his EP called E.B.A.H. and the duo made a song called “Boy Toy”.
2013 was a cool year because Shabba was mentioned in a song by A$AP Ferg called, you would not guess, “Shabba”. He even appeared at the end of the video.
In 2013, he did a remix with Migos and Busta Ryhmes and later during this year there were reports that he was working on an album.
However, he realized that his time passed by. It was simply the time that passed by and the genre’s he sang weren’t that popular anymore.
Shabba has had 15 albums, most popular ones being “As Raw as Ever”, “Rough & Ready Volume 1”, “X-tra Naked”, “Best Baby Father” and “Rappin’ with the Ladies”.
One of his biggest collaborations was with the famous Queen Latifah who made a song called “What’cha gonna do?” with him.
They said that they loved working with each other and there have even been some rumors about them dating, but this was neglected by both artists.
Personal life
Nowadays he works in New York City because there is a lot of chances there so if anything pops up he is ready to take it.
In 1992 he was a guest on The Word, a show by Channel 4.
He had to give an opinion about a song called “Boom Bye Bye” by Buju Banton. Shabba made a lot of trouble by picking up his private Bible and he started to say about how God wants gay people dead.
The presenter, Mark Lamarr, thankfully found his way out of the situation and he said that it isn’t true and Shabba knows it deep down.
Many people claim that Shabba is very bitter about his last albums not being popular and even being critised, but they also say that he surely needs to realize that his time and the time his genre was popular is over.
Shabba got married in 1992 when he met the woman of his dreams. It was Michelle Gordon. The couple has two children, Jahwon Ranks and Rexton Jr Ranks.
He loves them very much and doesn’t like to share information about them on the internet. Shabba claims this is unnecessary.
Shabba isn’t much into social media since he says it isn’t a big part of his life. However, he does have them and they are mostly for business.
He has YouTube, MySpace, Twitter where he is followed by 4.3k people, Instagram where he is followed by 12k people.
He also has a Facebook for business, but he doesn’t use it. He says he gets easily annoyed by the things he sees on the social media.
Shabba always had a pretty tough look o him and had a special style represented by multiple colors and so on.
Quick summary
Full name: Rexton Rawlston Fernando Gordon
Date of birth: January 17th 1966
Birthplace: Sturgetown, St. Anne, Jamaica
Age: 52
Profession: deejay, musician, singer
Height: NA
Weight: NA
Net Worth: $1 million
