It's all joy at the end of the clash as Black Kat's name goes on the winner's cheque. - Photo by Mel Cooke

There was a point at which the opening clash in last Saturday's second set of match-ups in the Guinness Sounds of Greatness competition could have been closer than it turned out to be. Flava Unit, with Flava Hype up front, had totally outplayed Danga Zone, led by Jigsy, in the opening 'juggling' round before a large, vociferous crowd in Junction, St Elizabeth.

Then as the tune-for-tune exchange of commercially released records started, Flava Unit played Peter Tosh's Burial to a middling response. Jigsy wisecracked that the Flava Unit trio, wearing faux bulletproof vests, were just three little men in brassieres, everyone except Flava Unit's booing supporters cracking up. Danga Zone followed up with Robert Ffrench's Dem No Rough Like We and the tide seemed to be turning.

Then in the second exchange, Jigsy commented that their uniform outfits were "buy one, get two free", dropping Tosh's Glass House and again the audience erupted. In the third exchange Flava Unit's "done dead already" was met with Culture's Conqueror and Danga Zone seemed poised to take the round and set up a decisive 'dub-fi-dub' closing segment.

The turning point was, ironically, one of the greatest commercially released sound clash tunes, as when Flava Unit had Bounty Killer intoning "yu dead dis time" Danga Zone went for Tenor Saw's Ring The Alarm and fell flat. And, although they had another good exchange, replying to Beenie Man's instruction to "gwaan go bury yu dead now" with Supercat's Ghetto Red Hot, the tide turned inexorably.

In the closing 'dub-fi-dub' round Flava Unit surged to victory.

It did not hurt that Flava Unit had a unit of supporters in the crowd, who gathered at the very front around a banner and not only cheered their sound on but also mercilessly jeered Danga Zone, although Jigsy showed he was equal to the task. In giving the scores, judge DJ Squeeze congratulated Jigsy in shutting up one heckler in particular on a balcony to the left and above the selectors. He awarded Flava Unit 248 points to Danga Zone's 214, while DJ Smurf scored it 255 for Flava Unit and 199 for Danga Zone.

And Squeeze commented that in the second round "everybody threw the rules out ... You disappoint me. You went for the hype and not what we were going for. Some of the language you used disappointed me".

BLACK KAT TERRITORY

St Elizabeth is Black Kat territory and it showed in the loud cheers when the sound system's name was announced for the second clash of the night. A very passionate core of supporters gathered just before the barriers set up and a little distance from the stage (giving the Guinness girls room for some dancing that had the men paying very close attention) and heckled Rockaway sound system from start to finish.

Not that, it seemed, the concentrated jeering made much of a difference, as it was a total wipe out. Even without their renown lead selector, Panther 'The War Tanker', Black Kat annihilated Rockaway in all three rounds, Fire Agent (who announced "a me bus de cannon pon de tanker") led the sound in a sound whipping of Rockaway.

It did not help, either, that Rockaway let a curse word slip in the juggling round, which contravenes the rules.

There was a sprinkling of teasing about 'straightness' and laughter all around, as well as dub plates cut specifically for the opposing sound, showing that the sound systems are really taking Guinness Sounds of Greatness 2009 seriously.