Customer Reviews

Diary of an Afro Warrior

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having previously heard Beni Uthman's (a.k.a. Benga) track titled Music Box on Mary Anne Hobbs' The Warrior Dubz, I picked up his first full length release on Tempa. The fourteen track album is a total trip through some of the deepest, groovy and at the same time melodic dubstep that I've heard to date. Operating out of South London, Benga's previous numerous 12-inchers appeared on genre's head-starters like Big Apple Records, Planet Mu, Hotflush Recordings and Southside Substars. Diary of an Afro Warrior is more than just a collection of previously heard hooks shoved through the dubstep grinder - each is unique in texture, style, and rhythm; each contains that 'in your face' attitude that I love so much about confident artists. Among the common groove treatments, I hear some prominent hip-hop influence, electro breaks, wobbly bass and even elements of minimal and funky house. With an incredible resource of ideas, directions and style incorporation demonstrated by Benga, we can be very confident in accepting that dubstep is here to stay, and evolve way beyond its current adolescent form. Note that the tracks appearing on a 3xVinyl release are pretty different from the CD release (for example, it doesn't contain the 2007 hit, Night, featuring D. Harris as Coki and instead it appears as a separate 12" EP). Highly recommended if you enjoy Skream, Boxcutter, Distance, Pinch and Burial. Favorite tracks: Zero M2, Night, Go Tell Them, and Emotions.

Half the time I think this is a dubstep record written by murderous robots. The other half, I think that it's an imitation robot album by Benga to trick murderous robots into doing his bidding.

All the time, though, this is like -- you know what it's like? When I saw Kiss when I was 12, in Worcester, the bass was so huge that I thought it was going to crush my chest. This is like that, except I feel like it's going to crush my entire soul. Also, there's some bass.

Seriously, though, you don't get nothing but 5-star reviews by accident, so if you've gotten this far, just buy it, put on your headphones, get into your velvet coffin, close the lid, and shoot into space. Robot space.

The song Night is reason alone to buy this album. It is in fact the reason I bought this album. Listening to it made me realize I'd been missing out. Benga is awesome. I honestly only like a few dubstep artists/DJs and Benga is among them. It's a fight between him and Darklord Dubload Project for my favorite.

Even if you're not the biggest dubstep fan, if you like any kind of House, prog or trance, etc, I'm confident you'll enjoy this album.

This is hands down the best representation of dubstep ive heard to date. His timing is perfect, his sounds are deep and overall this album is amazing. I find myself trying to recreate his deep sound in whatever DAW i may be working with.. But his sound is very unique. As a casualty of his own success im growing very impatient (im sure others are as well). We want to hear whats next. I know hes friends with a lot of the other dubstep creators but ive listened to everything from skream to burial and it just pales in comparison. It would be interesting to hear his beats with roots manuva.

this album is excellent. as a complete piece, everything flows very well. i usually start on song three, not really sure why but i like it. this album got me into the rest of Bengas music, which is also wonderful. really calming in a strange way. i listened to it through my zunepass subscription thing before i bought it, so i knew what i was getting into. one thing you dont notice from just listening to it is the packaging. it comes with sort of a cardboard wrapper that is the album cover. you slide the case out of that and everything is black. the entire case, the cd, front and back, just black. its really interesting. in my opinion the packaging makes this a worthwhile purchase in and of itself. this is one of three cd's i keep in my truck, out of hundreds of cd's i own (in addition to "Autoimmune" by Meat Beat Manifesto and "Pretty Hate Machine" by NIN). if you're into dubstep, i suggest this album strongly.

This was a pretty good cd. You have to listen to the whole CD to appreciate it entirely. I was hoping to find an artist similar to Burial but Benga's tunes are way different from Burial.

People of indigenous African descent have been the catalyst for British music genres for decades. Ska music was brought there by African-Caribbeans and served as the primary influence for British punk music. Again, dub in the 80s(whose most famous brit is the Jamaican Linton Kwesi Johnson) also influenced the trip hop of later British acts like Smith & Mighty, Massive Attack, and Tricky. What would Brit pop be without the Antiguan-English group Soul II Soul? It was out of this Afro-Brit culture that drum n bass (originally called "jungle" as a shady reference to the 'black' people and sound it came out of before indigenous Europeans approved of it) was born. There would never have been a Ed Rush and Optical without 4hero, Grooverider, Roni Size, Ray Keith, etc.

Dubstep is a mixture of all of these Afro-Brit genres and, as always, its first hero is of African descent. Though race is taboo to discuss, it does influence the approach people take to music from their individual experience as well as the Afro-community they are a part of. Thus, this album has a distinctly soulful sound that is authentic, fresh, and Africanistik. Within the next year or two Benga's album will be overshadowed by an indigenous European whose face is more approvable by the masses with money, but hopefully, like other Afro-Brit pioneers, he will not be forgotten.