Music |
Welcome to Jamrock
Damian Marley
By
Published: Jan 01, 2006
Category:
World
His latest recommendation is Damian Marley, youngest son of you-know-who. This is not exactly an esoteric choice. Marley’s last CD won a Grammy; this one entered at #7 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart, which is higher than any reggae artist in history. And he’s been touring with Ben Harper, whose musical taste is as exalted as his own music.
Still, I was stunned by this CD — despite a little sampling of Dad’s music, this is in no way a “son of” deal. There’s no paean to ganja. Haile Selassie isn’t about to liberate Jamaica’s Rastas and lead them “"home” to Africa. There’s optimism here, but it’s set against a world in which a handful of companies and countries have a boot on the throats of the oppressed — which explains, more or less, the guilty feeling you have when you go to Jamaica and compare yourself to the Jamaicans who don’t have the good fortune to have been hired to pamper you.
If the anger is raw, the music is not — this is probably the most varied reggae CD I’ve ever heard. Take the beginning: a political speech, accompanied by the booming of a military drum. You can’t miss the menace. But what’s that? Strings. They sweeten the threat, they confound expectation. But only for a second. That drum pounds pounds pounds. A rainstorm of words cascades. The politician veers into the hysterical. This is complex stuff, worthy of a close listen.
The title song is a radio favorite on independent radio stations. Easy to see why. A sweet voice sings alone: “Out in the streets, they call it ….murder!” Whoa. Where did that come from? “Welcome to Jamrock” — what kind of “welcome” is this? No time to think about it, because here comes the bass guitar to work on your lower spine, now begins the off-beat drumming that more or less insists you get up and corkscrew your way around the room.
The lyrics are shouted. An assault. The accent is thick, and it’s easy to miss how urgent — how brutal, how utterly tragic — they are. So here, as a public service is a sample:
Welcome to Jamrock, poor people are dead at random
Political violence, can done! Pure ghost and phantom,
the youth them get blind by stardom
Now the Kings of Kings a call
Old man to Pickney, so wave one hand if you with me
To see the sufferation sicken me
Them suit no fit me, to win election they trick we
And they don’t do nuttin at all
Come on let’s face it, a ghetto education’s basic
A most a the youths them waste it
And when they waste it, that’s when they take the guns and replace it
Then them don’t stand a chance at all
And that’s why a nuff little youth have up some fat matic
With the extra magazine inna them back pocket
And have leisure night time inna some black jacket
All who not lock glocks, them a lock rocket
Then will full you up a current like a short circuit
Them a run a roadblock which part the cops block it
And from now till a mornin not stop clock it
If the run outta rounds a brought back ratchet
And, interspersed, that sweet voice: “Out in the street, they call it…murder.”
Same story in the other songs. Damian Marley is all over the map, drawing on soca, hip hop and R & B . You’ll swear you are hearing Stevie Wonder; you will truly be hearing a duet with Bobby Brown (Whitney Houston’s sometime husband). Violins swirl in unlikely places. This is much more than reggae — it’s literally world music, full of surprises and fresh delights.
Damien Marley is hugely ambitious: he insist he won’t be satisfied until a reggae record is the album of the year. It says here that if anyone is likely to do that, it’s this guy. Meanwhile, you can score points with kids and friends by slipping this CD on — however hip you are, no one is expecting you to be into music this exciting and of-the-moment.
To buy “Welcome to Jamrock” from Amazon.com, click here.
