Customer Reviews

A Place Called Africa: Songs of the Lost Tribe

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

 

 

All songs that are about repatriation. Musically very good. Disc 1 is late sixties, early seventies and is in my opinion the best of the two. Disc 2 is early to late seventies, also good, but some filler (like the Horace Andy and Johnny Clarke songs) though not much.
Standout tracks "Going Back Home" Vibrators feat. Count Ossie; Bob Marley's "African Herbsman" off course, "Repatriation" by one Audley Rollins, followed by a great dj version by I Roy; "African People" Winston Jarett; "Rastaman Going Back Home" Flowers & Alvin; "I Man A African" The Sons of Selassie (lead vocals: Max Romeo); "Land Of Love" Sons of Light (Lee Perry production); "Got To Go Home" Ronnie Davis; "Majority Rule" Jimmy Riley.

Conscious soul music that should not be forgotten. Definitely 5 stars.

Although Rastafarianism was only practised by a minority of Jamaicans, it seems that all of those were in reggae bands in the 1970s. More to the point, they were highly creative and talented singers, musicians, producers and engineers who made more fantastic music than seems actually possible. The African heritage of Jamaicans had been brought to their attention by Marcus Garvey in the early twentieth century and his movement, though frowned on by the authorities, had risen steadily in popularity and led to the birth of Rastafari.
This sure-footed 2CD 40-track collection charts the development of the music that this culture created, picking up the story from 1967, with Al and the Vibrators' Going Back Home. Its actual birth is believed to have been with elements of African drumming that had been utilised from the late 1950s, and Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, who play on the Vibrators' track, were among its earliest practioners. Desmond Dekker, Clancy Eccles, Dennis Alcapone, Alton Ellis, Bob Marley, I-Roy, Dennis Brown, Horace Andy, Johnny Clarke and Sugar Minott are among the important artists featured, with the closing track coming from Dillinger in 1983. A well-chosen selection which puts the focus on a particular aspect of reggae to good effect

The songs are not only highly enjoyable from a musical perspective, but reveal much about the core beliefs of Jamaica's Rastamen. Especially great is Alton Ellis' two songs: GOING BACK TO AFRICA ('cause I'm black) and TRUE BORN AFRICAN (Maybe 'e t'ink I'm lost in a foreign land and ceased to be another African. Heh. Tell 'em I'm doing well in spite of living in hell. I'm coming home... 'cause Africa is my home. I'm a true-born African!). Al & the Vibrators and Winston Jarrett & the Righteous Flames also make Disc One a MUST.

The idea is that 'Africa is Paradise'(The Conscious Minds) whereas the rest of the world is hell - and that Africa is for Africans (the chosen people). Other songs directly refer to Adis Ababa and Ethiopia, the homeland of Prince (Ras) Tafari, aka Haile Salasie. The songs are also largely about Africa and the Africans and their travails and nobility rather than attacks on whites ('burn me!'), whatever the racialist sentiments that may underlie part of the Rasta creed.

I gave 5 stars for disc 1 and 2 stars for disc 2 (averaging 3.5 & rounded to 4) because the first disc is so much better than the second. Finally, while the lyrics and beat in so many of the songs are truly enjoyable, my experience is that it is better to absorb them in small bits rather than listening to all the songs at once.

Well worth listening to!