Customer Reviews

As Raw As Ever

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Buy this album for "The Jam" if nothing else. It is hands down the best hip-hop dancehall collabo EVER. I used to rock this tape on the bus back in junior high and it's still in heavy rotation... However, Maxi Priest Sucks!!!

Trailer Load A Girls triggers off a rollercoaster of rhythms and rap, mostly unintelligible. Gun Pon Me and Flesh Axe are particularly raucous, the former's only discernible words being "jezebel, prostitute, mongrel" and there's a definite preoccupation with ladies throughout, as evidenced by titles like Woman Tangle and A Mi Di Girls Dem Love. Maxi Priest lends some respectability as he duets with Shabba on the radio-friendly Housecall, while the closing track, The Jam, features KRS-1 of Boogie Down Productions. Shabba rants about his hero Yellowman on Where Does Slackness Come From?, and about blue movies and reality, casually dropping profundities like "Me I went to high school/Was once a prefect/Took some great subjects English and mathematics/But my greatest subject was sex." (Fist-A-Ris). As subtle as an air raid yet affectionate in a naive sort of way. It's all the excitement of ska and early reggae returned, infused with a very positive vibration.

The entire CD is slammin' with good dancehall. It's not all "sooped" up to be a cross-over pop hit. It's one of Shabba's best. The tracks are not necessarily hardcore, but the beats the lyrics and Shabba's "gruff" voice set the CD off lovely. A must have CD for all the dancehall junkie's out there.