Tinga Stewart and Ninja Man

When Tinga Stewart and Ninja Man's remake of Percy Sledge's Take Time to Know Her hit Jamaica's dancehalls and airwaves in the late 1980s, it gave the singer/deejay combination a new lease on life.

The revived format went on to not only become a staple of Jamaican music yet again, but also earn resounding international accolades. Maxi Priest and Shabba's Housecall, Shaggy and Rik Rok's It Wasn't Me, Nadine Sutherland and Terror Fabulous' Action and Chakademus and Pliers' Murder She Wrote were among the more notable singer/deejay cuts.

And, as Tinga Stewart tells it, it came about, in large, because of Ninja Man's persistence.

"It was the first combination that start back in dancehall in the 1980s," Tinga Stewart told The Sunday Gleaner. "From there you have Shaggy, you have Maxi Priest."

"Ninja Man always see me and say he wanted to do a song with me. Him say, 'Tinga, me wan do a tune wid you'. Me say 'yeah man'," Tinga Stewart said.

When it finally happened, though, it was not planned.

"One day, me ride me bike go Jimmy Cliff studio and see him in a session with Witty (who now runs 'Uptown Mondays' at Savannah Plaza on Constant Spring Road). I saw him and a rhythm was playing. Him say, 'Tinga here', him say 'combination'."

Stewart's choice

And, just like that, passing a microphone back and forth, with no preset plan about where one would stop and the other pick up, they recorded the cover version of Take Time To Know Her, which came out on Witty's Music Master label.

The song was Stewart's choice. "I used to just like it," he told The Sunday Gleaner. "Me was a vocalist with Boris Gardiner, so me know the song long time."

"We did one cut," Tinga Stewart said. And, that one cut was enough, as when it was released a week after being recorded Take Time To Know Her went to number one on the Jamaican charts within three weeks, Stewart said, occupying the pole position for about a month.

It fulfilled the expectations of the people who were gathered in the studio when the song was recorded ("Everybody was jumping and saying it would be a number one song," Stewart said.)

The first time Stewart heard it outside the studio, people were also enjoying Take Time To Know Her. "It was playing at a record shop in Half-Way Tree. The people a skank to it. Them time people a listen to music and record a sell," Stewart said. "Then me hear it in a dance. People a go wild. I think it was a Stone Love dance at House of Leo."

live delivery

But it was the live delivery of the song that sent them over the top, including stops all over Jamaica and a European tour. "Just before Gilbert, we do a show over by Fort Clarence. I never hear so much gunshot in my life. When me go England about three years ago and draw it at Brixton Academy, I never get a forward like that since me a sing. I couldn't believe it," Stewart said.

"To this day, it is the song I open my show with," he said.