Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer 
Mad Cobra performing at last year's Summer Sizzle 2005, held in August at the Jamalco Sports Club in Halse Hall, Clarendon.-FILE
THE COBRA is not by nature a chummy creature; keeping its belly close to the ground. And snipers are famed for going it alone, waiting and waiting and waiting in the right place for the right shot at the right time.
It is no surprise, then, that deejay Mad Cobra goes it almost totally alone on the Snypa Way double disc album, with only two combinations, Nuh Ratings with Stacius and Complaint with Vybz Kartel and Beenie Man, among the 30 tracks in these 'featuring ...' heavy musical days.
OWN GOOD COMPANY
Still, Cobra is not all alone; with his effortless variations in tone and often employing call and answer style (he takes the persona of attacker and defender over the phone in Extortionist), he is his own very good company.
Plus, behind Cobra's name on the album, 'Skelter' is written in lighter type. It is, indeed, a character behind the character Mad Cobra, which is in turn behind the man Ewart Brown a character that gets more than passing mention on Snypa Way, first popping up in Repeat After Me (Helter Skelter why/Whe dem coulda want between de nex' man thigh?).
It is his first album in six years, a very personal effort for which the Mad Cobra is co-executive producer (which means that he spent money to get it done), along with Paul 'Banky' Giscombe, Clifton 'Specialist' Dillon and Michael Reid.
There isn't the usual 'Parental Advisory' about explicit lyrics; it goes one better, with a 'Strong Parental Advisory'.
It should be 'Very Strong', or 'Send the Kids Away From This One Screaming'.
Snypa Way is uncompromisingly hardcore, with guns (Tek Gunshot, Gun Maths, Dead Some Bwoy Fi Dead, Press Trigger) and girls (Gal A Yard, Lot Of Pum Pum, Freaky Gal) dominating, before the album ends on a piquant, philosophical note with the deejay in an imprisoned character ruminating Life Goes On, a track that has been receiving good airplay.
(It is somewhat ironic that the other philosophical track is the tough deejay team-up Complaint, in which Cobra drops the line "yu waan rich inna dis worl' yu betta born white").
However, the deejay's extremely good writing and delivery make it more than simply tolerable.
GOOD WRITING
Snypa Way is brutally brilliant, laden with lyrics, intense with imagery, vibrant with variation, mesmerising in its menace, engaging (and sometimes excruciating "if de man no come back wha dat a tell yu sey?/him haffi bathe as him done wha dat a tell yu sey?...) in its eroticism, fascinating in its ferocity and hypnotic with hooks that sink deep and hold.
But the vast majority of these songs will not see the light of airplay, although the few familiar tracks (Money Inna Coil, Mi Gone) among the mostly new material have already been on FM (as in 'female') as well as stereo.
If these songs were to be edited by beeping, the result would be almost like a person leaning on the buzzer to an apartment complex for minutes on end. Mad Cobra would have the DJR Records release no other way.
FOR THE GUTTER
"It direct," he tells The Sunday Gleaner, the underlying bass in his voice emphasising just how high he went to inform "... a dat a bad bway talk..." in his breakout 1991 Yush. "It is not meant to be an airplay album. Something for the gutter."
There is a reason why the snake has gone underground with his first album since the turn of the century.
"The hardcore dancehall Cobra fans always saying when you going to give we a real hardcore Cobra album, no hol' back nutten," he said.
He referred to the 1992 certified million seller, saying "over the years we do Flex ... it not watered down, but we watch de topic".
He will be watching the topic on his next full-length effort, which will be coming in short order, Cobra explaining that The Other Side of the Coin, the second part of Snypa Way, will be coming out in December, with eight tracks already completed. He will be keeping it "hardcore, but on the brighter side of life."
'Hardcore' is very important, Cobra says of of the overseas market that "hardcore is what draw us to them. The American market don't want us to come to dem on hip-hop tracks. They are trying to be like us."
And he has a tour with Tupac Shakur and first-hand experience of the late rapper's fascination with things Jamaican to prove it.
SATISFIED WITH RESPONSE
He is satisfied with the response so far, saying that "the buzz on the streets is strong".
And Cobra responds with a firm but not defensive 'no' to any suggestion that his music might move listeners in venomous directions.
"The most influential way of communication is doing things. When the beat pass, the song pass. The silver screen is more influential ... The home have a lot to do with what happen, and poverty. We no tell people go rob people. We tell people about the gun and what it can do. If people listen to the depths of the song is mostly comedy. Yu say it and it gone," Cobra said.
Although he seems to have always gone his own way, avoiding the madding crowd, Cobra does not intend to be gone from the music scene, resting on his considerable but understated laurels.
"You have to look at generation, watch de street. Some man sey 'me is Cobra, me do Flex. The generation now no know nutten bout that," he said. "You have to see what them gravitate to and bring it to them. You have to change with the times. You have to write things that affect the lives of people, the masses of people which is poor people," he said.
Still, there are some songs which he will not do. "I don't do dance song and I don't sing weed song. No cigarette, no weed," he said. "We no deejay events. Me wi do it freestyle, but not for recording."
FIRM PERSONNA
On stage, Cobra presents a firm very firm persona. In person, the trademark dark glasses high on his plaits, his eyes are direct and alert, a quick smile breaking out as he sees a neighbour from Port-more in the Gleaner's offices and a hail follows. No star attitude there.
He is compact, though not quite stocky, the evidence of gym work filling out his shirt and giving the impression of controlled energy.
And he is disciplined, heading out to be on time for the interview before a postponement and being well ahead of time for the rescheduled appointment two hours after the first.
The two sides of the CD's packaging reflect the two 'gs' (guns and girls) which dominate Snypa Way, Cobra showing the abs and other muscles on the front in unabashed, hardcore appeal to the ladies and in full stealth gear, gun and all, on the reverse.
He points out that they are trial, promotional shots for the planned movie Shotta 2, which he just might have a major role in. It would be familiar territory of sorts for Cobra. It was, after all, from the screen that he got his name.
Tomorrow: Going back to Cobra's deejay beginnings and going back to school.
