In 2003, in a studio in Kingston, producer Cordel “Skatta” Burrell put together a riddim for a few dancehall tracks. Twenty-two years later, that same riddim entered the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 for the second time, this time propelled by Colombian star Karol G. “Coolie Dance” tells the story of how a sound created in Kingston continues to set the pace for global pop music, far beyond the island where it was born.
This week, “Bby WOW,” Karol G ’s song featuring Judeline and Rusowsky, climbed from No. 16 to No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song is already topping the Spotify Global 50 and the Billboard Hot Latin charts, with more than 78 million streams since its release in late summer. The previous week, the track had already peaked at number one on the Billboard Global 200, the global chart that spans all platforms.
Around the 30-second mark, a recognizable percussion pattern emerges beneath Karol G’s voice. It’s the “Coolie Dance” riddim, a Jamaican creation dating back more than two decades, which is resurfacing at the top of the U.S. and global charts.
A riddim born in Kingston
In late 2003, Cordel “Skatta” Burrell produced “Coolie Dance” in his Kingston studio. In dancehall, a riddim is the common instrumental track over which multiple artists take turns laying down their vocals—a practice that allows the same sound to circulate from one track to another without ever losing its appeal. This concept of the shared riddim—where a single backing track can spawn dozens of different versions—dates back to the era of Jamaican sound systems and sets dancehall apart from most Western popular genres.
Burrell’s track thus served as the basis for several songs that same year, notably featuring Elephant Man, Vybz Kartel, Bounty Killer, Sean Paul, and Ce’Cile. At the time, there was no indication that it would soon make its way across the Atlantic.
The following year, the Puerto Rican duo Nina Sky used the riddim for “Move Ya Body,” featuring Jabba. The track climbed to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, reached No. 6 in the United Kingdom, No. 1 in Croatia, and charted in the top 10 in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Spain. Pitchfork ranked it the 29th best song of the year. Later that same year, Pitbull and Lil Jon also adopted it for “Culo,” followed by Lumidee and Fatman Scoop for “Dance!” in 2006. Within three years, the Jamaican riddim had made its way through several American pop scenes, carried by artists who had never even set foot in Kingston.
"Coolie Dance" is back with Karol G
Twenty-two years after its first appearance in the Top 10, “Coolie Dance” is back in the charts with “Bby WOW.” When asked by the music press, Skatta Burrell described his creation as a “child of the 2000s” and praised Karol G’s work. The producer says he encourages artists who sample his riddim and claims to draw inspiration from music around the world, beyond just dancehall.
This isn’t the first time “Coolie Dance” has made its way outside of Jamaica. As early as 2023, Beyoncé had incorporated it into her Renaissance world tour, a move widely reported by the Jamaican press, which saw it as belated recognition of the island’s influence on international pop music. At every stage, however, it has been artists from elsewhere—Puerto Rico in the past, the United States and Colombia today—who have propelled this riddim to the top of the charts. Jamaica, for its part, remains the silent source of a rhythm that the whole world continues to recognize without always knowing its exact origin or the name of the person who created it.
Two decades after its birth in a Kingston studio, “Coolie Dance” has lost none of its ability to travel, to shift between languages and continents without losing its rhythmic identity. This raises a broader question—one familiar to many Jamaican producers whose creations travel far beyond their island—namely, the recognition that should accompany every riddim as it changes hands, languages, and generations.
It is a riddim—that is, a dancehall instrumental—created in late 2003 by Jamaican producer Cordel “Skatta” Burrell in Kingston. It first served as the basis for several tracks that same year, notably featuring Elephant Man, Vybz Kartel, Bounty Killer, Sean Paul, and Ce’Cile.
Because it’s sampled in “Bby WOW,” the track by Colombian star Karol G, which entered the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 this week after previously peaking at No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200. This is the second time in 22 years that this riddim has reached the Top 10 of the Hot 100, following Nina Sky’s “Move Ya Body” in 2004.
The riddim was notably covered by the Puerto Rican duo Nina Sky for “Move Ya Body” (2004), by Pitbull and Lil Jon for “Culo” (2004), by Lumidee and Fatman Scoop for “Dance! ” (2006), and by Beyoncé during her Renaissance tour in 2023.
