Jamaican Karaoke

Karaoke is pretty hot. I usually never get up and sing, but of all the cool things that Japan has to offer I'm glad they exported this swell invention. So, this weekend I went to a reggae club in the Bronx with a popular karaoke night. My cousin took me there and promised that it would be funny to hear people butcher songs with their accents and tone-deaf singing, and later the dance floor would open.
There were some really good singers there, and some really bad ones- that's typical karaoke. Of course, every culture has their own way of doing things. In between songs the DJ played dancehall music like Beenie Man which was great! But when people got up to sing the DJ would start the song, allow the singer to get the first few words out and stop the music. I thought maybe the machine was messing up, until the DJ yelled "PULL UP!!!!" and started the song again. And I'm not talking about someone getting up to sing a Lady Saw track, these were songs by Alicia Keys and Destiny's Child. They were pulling up r&b songs during karaoke! I nearly fell on the floor with laughter. It was so unneccessary and so Jamaican to start a song over because it's a "big tune." And none of the singers skipped a beat. You would never know when it was coming because he didn't do it for every song, but they'd just take it from the top. This is why I travel.. for the oddities.