French Vanilla

Various Artists (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 30, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Greensleeves
• ASIN: B0001VJ7G6
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,285,330 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Wicked Wicked Riddim. . ., November 29, 2006

By 

Achis (Kingston, JA/Philipsburg, SxM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: French Vanilla (Audio CD)

I've been mentioning recently how every few months or so I'll go through and clean out my closet running into literally dozens of unopened albums, a great deal of which are riddim albums. And this year was no different, I found several riddim albums which I now am currently vibing to (i.e. The Caribbean Style, The Lion Paw, the Tiajuana etc.) and at the same time I am currently filling the empty spaces in the closet by buying new riddim albums which I almost certainly won't listen to for another year or so (i.e. the Full Draw, the Twice Again, and the Inspector).

Then there's the case of the French Vanilla. I rather vividly recall purchasing this album on the day it was released and enjoying it CONSTANTLY ever since. The French Vanilla riddim was one of the earliest built by one of my favorite producer's dancehall ace, Vendetta roughly three years ago. The riddim features a nice Spanish guitar combined with an all around hard driven riddim. The thing is so, 'casually strong' and it almost oozes the confidence of the producer.

For the most part, Vendetta taps his usual cast of characters to voice the riddim (i.e. Vybz Kartel, Wayne Marshall and Sizzla) then there's the obligatory new and up and coming artists (Da'ville, who is now well established and Timberley) with the balance of the tracks being held by veteran artists of varying popularity and quality. And, as I'll maintain now, Vendetta, besides making some of the best riddims in all of dancehall, chooses just the best artists for a certain riddim and will make the right choices on who to voice and who not to voice on a particular riddim, thus, he also makes some of the best riddim albums out there now.

While the mid-level and of course the bottom level of tunes on the French Vanilla riddim suffer GREATLY, the top tracks here are absoulte A+ dancehall. Amongst those are both Vybz Kartel's tunes. Goodas is an odd sounding, but rather clever tune which takes Kartel's usual lyrical set and exaggerates it throughout the song, almost to the point of being comically clever, but Kartel knew what he was doing on the tune definitely! His other tune, Murderer is amongst the strongest of his entire career. Murderer has a flow on it which is so sickening it warrants the overall premature comparison to the legendary Papa San which Kartel seems to receive so much these days.

Also checking in on the top flight here are Assassin and Ward 21, with both expounding on everything critics say is wrong with dancehall today. Assassin's hit Girls Gone Wild is flat out brilliant! This song, perhaps better than any other, flat out glues itself to the French Vanilla and it ultimately was to become the signature song on the riddim. Ward 21 checks in with prime level Ward vibes on their very nice and ULTRA clever Like 'S'. The song of course, is very very slack but will have you sitting in your car wondering exactly what they're trying to spell.

However, they all pale to comparison to the best track her, which is without a doubt Style Yuh Want by dancehall poet Tanya Stephens. Stephens goes cleverly slack on the tune which is her normal style, but combined with addictive riddim makes pushes it to the head of the class.

Of the rest of the tracks, highlights include Lady Saw on the vocodered Dis Gal Ya, with Saw continuing to stake her claim as the Queen of the Dancehall and in the middle of this songs, it also rises to the top flight as well. Check Sizzla's Think of It. This is the hype, violent foul mouth Sizzla going crazy over a riddim, and its a powerful song! He somewhat mirrors the riddim as he's simply aggressive on the track, nothing special, no crazy hooks, just aggressive and hardcore dj style. Check Spragga's Gal Can Whine with Spragga doing a fine job on the style of riddim that he was made to voice! The only pure singer track on the riddim, Jump Off by Da'ville is decent as well and features one of the few slight variations of the French Vanilla (as does Sizzla's Think of It) and Timberley's Red Hot playing the caboose on the album and she represents as the 3rd female, quite well.

Overall, I've thoroughly enjoyed the French Vanilla for the past 3 years or so and figure to continue to do so. I can't say its exactly anything special (thus the 4 stars) or anything dancehall hasn't seen before. But if you're a fan of the music you know that Vendetta builds exceptional riddims, and while the French Vanilla was one his earlier ones, there is no dip in quality.