Behold the premiere of “Peace and Happiness,” a previously unreleased track from Churchical Chant Of The Iyabinghi, one of On-U Sound’s upcoming spate of releases by African Head Charge on vinyl. African Head Charge is the long-running collaboration between master Nyabinghi percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah and maverick UK dub producer Adrian Sherwood. Some of the trippiest dub you’ll ever encounter.

Comprised of music originally released between 1990 and 2011, Drumming Is A Language, a 5 CD box set including material from these same releases alongside Churchical Chant Of The Iyabinghi—an album of unreleased music and rarities dating from the early 90s that were rescued from decaying tapes—will be released on March 6.

This new series picks up the story in 1990 with the album that is widely regarded as their masterpiece, Songs Of Praise. It’s been expanded to a double album with a whole raft of bonus tracks, as has 1993’s In Pursuit Of Shashamane Land.

2005’s Vision Of A Psychedelic Africa and 2011’s Voodoo Of The Godsent are pressed to vinyl for the first time, both as double LP sets, and as a companion piece to the Return Of The Crocodile LP of early rarities, Churchical Chant Of The Iyabinghicompiles alternate mixes and dubs from 1990 -1993. Each vinyl LP comes with a double-sided 24” x 12” poster containing an exclusive new interview with Bonjo in 5 parts alongside rare photos.

In recent years African Head Charge have returned to the live stage with a line-up featuring original African Head Charge participants.
 

Lee Perry and Adrian Sherwood by Kishi Yamamoto
 
When Rainford, the collaboration between dub legends Lee “Scratch” Perry and On-U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood came out earlier this year, the reviews were stellar, but I will admit to being a bit skeptical.  A five star MOJO review asserted “Rainford is a late-career answer to 1978’s Roast Fish, Collie Weed & Corn Bread and beyond all reasonable expectation, fully its equal.” 

Really? The unequivocal statement above bites off an awful lot, of course, but damn if that album wasn’t—beyond all reasonable expectation—really amazing.

Next from the Perry and Sherwood team-up comes Heavy Rain, the dub version of Rainford. The press release, echoing the MOJO reviewer claims “If Rainford is 2019’s Roast Fish, Collie Weed & Corn Bread then Heavy Rain is its Super Ape,” but this time I was less skeptical. The two greatest dub producers alive, plus the talents of the great Jamaican master trombonist Vin Gordon and another fellow known for his prowess in the studio, Brian Eno? 

The track that features Eno’s contribution is a radical reworking of “Makumba Rock” one of Rainford‘s highlights. Here titled “Here Come the Warm Dreads,” it’s my understanding that Eno only worked on the right channel of the mix. It’s super trippy, almost disorienting. TURN IT UP LOUD. And smoke a joint, would you? Don’t waste it!

Heavy Rain is released on black vinyl, silver vinyl, CD as well as available for download and streaming on December 6th via On-U Sound.
 

 
My personal experience with skinheads—a “run in” you might call it—was brief, lasting mere minutes, but it was a memorable occasion…

The year was 1983 and I was a 17-year-old lovesick dickhead living in a south London squat who wanted to impress this super gorgeous goth chick I knew. My choice of attire has always been more to the preppy side, but I realized that if I was to have any chance with this beautifully morbid creature, I needed to switch up my look from Brooks Brothers to something a lil’ more Peter Murphy. So I hennaed my hair black and spiked it up with hairspray, wore eyeliner and makeup and donned a black trenchcoat. The object of my affections was not in the least impressed with my new look, but that’s beside the point.

Later that night, right after the pubs had shut, I was going home, alone, rejected and dejected, on the London subway, and feeling like an idiot. The goth look I’d worn for all of maybe five hours just wasn’t me. When the train stopped at Leicester Square, a massive rush of people crushed into the train, including a gang of eight very large, very fearsome, very mean and very fucking drunk skinheads. They were with their girlfriends, who were also wearing boots and braces. All had the “Chelsea cut” that female skins wore. The girls seemed even harder than their boyfriends, and just as ugly.

One of the female skins noticed me and pointed out the “goth poofter,” suggesting that her boyfriend and his pals should kick my faggoty ass. They jeered at me, brandished their fists at me and let me—and every other passenger in that subway car—know that they were going to beat me within an inch of my life. If I was lucky. Suffice to say that my life might’ve changed course dramatically that night had things turned out differently.

My first instinct was to piss in my pants or start crying like a baby begging them for mercy, but I decided that hoping for some cops to magically appear and save my quivering hide was probably a better strategy. Then the train conductor announced over the intercom system that we’d be stopping at the next station, and that the train we were on was being taken out of commission so all the passengers needed to exit and wait on the platform for the next train to arrive.

This was not necessarily good news, I thought.

I mentioned how crowded the train was. When this positively bursting-at-the-seams car cleared out a bit, I made to exit in the opposite direction from where the skinheads had been taunting me when the biggest and meanest one of them stomped right over and drew his arm back to wallop me with a haymaker. Had his punch connected, I’ve no doubt that he would have knocked me unconscious and probably broken several bones in my face. But he didn’t connect. He barely grazed my forehead and I felt his fist rush by me like a gust of wind as it just barely missed cracking my skull into several pieces.

The platform at the station was even more densely packed than the train had been. I needed to find some cops—and was frantically trying to push my way through the sardines, followed closely behind by this drunken, bloodthirsty skinhead wolfpack—but there were no London bobbies anywhere to be found. I kept moving, hoping something would happen when the train turned up. Standing still and waiting for them to catch up to me wasn’t an option, and there were several yards between us. I plowed onwards.

Keep reading after the jump…

 
Babylon is a totally engrossing 1980 British film that is set against the UK reggae and “sound system” culture of South London’s then predominantly West Indian neighborhood, Brixton.

It stars Brinsley Forde, the lead singer of Aswad as “Blue.” Martin Stellman (Quadrophenia) originally co-wrote the screenplay with director Franco Rosso as a teleplay for the BBC in 1975. The soundtrack was scored by Slits producer Dennis Bovell and featured music by Aswad (their killer “Warrior Charge” number, which figures in the plot of the film), Yabby U, I Roy, Michael Prophet and others. Babylon was shot by Oscar- winning cinematographer Chris Menges (The Mission; The Killing Fields).

From the (region free) UK DVD:

Sound system ‘toaster’ Blue and his Ital Lion crew are looking forward to a soundclash competition with rival outfit Jah Shaka. But as the event approaches, Blue’s personal life begins to unravel. Fired from his job, he begins to suspect his girlfriend is cheating on him and then one night he is brutally beaten by plainclothes policemen. Finally, when their lock-up garage is broken into and their sound system destroyed, he cannot take any more. Increasingly angered and alienated by what he perceives to be society’s rejection of his race and his culture, Blue is compelled to respond by fighting fire with fire.

Babylon is a real treat and considered a classic today. The soundclash scene with Jah Shaka near the film’s end is just a flat-out great piece of filmmaking. Babylon was difficult to see until it was released on DVD in 2008, but it’s made a strong comeback since then, with prestigious screenings and a BBC broadcast as part of the “Reggae Britannia” season.

Certainly it’s a unique film, the only one of its kind to examine the harsh life of Jamaican immigrants in London during that time. Babylon represents the first time in UK cinema where British reggae culture and Rastafarianism were explored in a non-documentary. Director Rosso was raised in south London himself and knew exactly where to find visually arresting backdrops of urban decay in Brixton and Deptford.
 

 
Keep reading after the jump…

 
“Uptown Top Ranking” is an infectious hit single that knocked Wings’ Christmas blockbuster “Mull of Kintyre” off the #1 spot on the British pop charts in February of 1978. Although it only reached that peak for a single week after climbing the charts for months, the playful and whimsical rap, performed by teenaged Althea Forrest and Donna Reid, or Althea and Donna as the duo were known, is still fondly remembered. I’m surprised it hasn’t been used in a car commercial. Perhaps it already has been?
 

 
The number was produced by reggae great Joe Gibbs, apparently for fun. Perhaps it was intended to be a novelty record of sorts, as it was a female “answer” song aimed as a comeback to Trinity’s hit “Three Piece Suit and Thing.” Both tunes utilized the riddim from a soulful and romantic Alton Ellis song from 1967 titled “I’m Still In Love with You.” It was popularized in the UK by BBC DJ John Peel.
 

 
Forrest and Reid, were just 17 and 18 years old, respectively, when their unmemorable album was recorded and frankly they probably had just the one good song in them. But hey, what an amazing song it was! Their brief Wikipedia entry doesn’t really say what happened to Althea and Donna after their brief brush with pop fame.

They were named-checked in the lyrics of the Psychedelic Furs song “We Love You” in 1980:

I’m in love with Althea and Donna and
all that shit that goes uptown top ranking

More after the jump…

 
Because of the inclusion of his classic song “Draw Your Brakes” on the gazillion-selling soundtrack album to the iconic Jamaican film, The Harder They Come (starring the great Jimmy Cliff) many people have heard the music of reggae DJ David Scott, professionally known as Scotty, but they probably have no idea that he had several other records which were equally good. Like many reggae artists, Scotty had many hit singles on the island of Jamaica that were pretty much not heard anywhere else around the world, except on the turntables of the reggae fanatics. This began to change when labels like Trojan and Blood and Fire began to release deluxe CDs of music that had heretofore mostly existed on scratchy 45s (which was the case of most ‘70s roots-era reggae). Even though reggae collectors have always found a way to get the records they wanted, until the genre started to really get taken seriously in the 1990s (record heads had already plowed through easy listening, then free jazz, so reggae was the next obvious genre to plunder) it wasn’t all that easy to hear a lot of this music.

I discovered Scotty on various Trojan DJ collections I had (like the amazing High Explosion: DJ Sounds from 1970-1976 set) which included scorchers like “Riddle I This,” “Penny for Your Song,” “Salvation Train” and “Do I Worry.” When I finally got my hands on a used copy of a shoddily packaged—but awesome—Trojan comp called Unbelievable Sounds, which contained pretty much every song the guy ever recorded, I was thrilled to hear nearly two dozen stone classics. Many of his songs feature a kind of style known in reggae circles as “singjay.” There was a charming, childlike quality to Scotty’s raps (and persona). His voice was young sounding and he sang about Sesame Street. His melodies were A-B-C’s simple. (Kids tend to immediately respond to Scotty and it’s obvious why). I have read that he would often perform wearing short pants and a beanie. This makes sense!

Although I have a number of favorite Scotty songs, my top favorite has to be “Clean Race”—with a loose rap that would have Snoop gagging it’s so fucking good—delivered atop the riddim for Lloyd Charmer’s classic, “Save the People.”  This was recorded in 1972. It’s often been said that Jamaican DJs like Big Youth and U-Roy were the originators of rap music—which is basically true—but I’d nominate Scotty for being the artist of that time period who most closely predicted the form rap would ultimate take. Listen to this amazing vocal performance and see if you agree (and listen for producer Derrick Harriott’s turn at the mike as he explains his concept of how a hit record is made!)
 

 
David Scott left Jamaica to set up a recording studio in in Florida in 1974, effectively ending his career as a DJ. Below is a video of him performing “Draw Your Brakes,” apparently sometime in the US during the 1980s. Scott died in 2003 at the age of 53.
 

 
The dub virus has now spread out from its late-‘60s Jamaican origins on into the 21st century via modern roots, dubstep and virtually all other electronic beat music. Producer Dub Gabriel’s new album, Raggabass Resistance offers some compelling coordinates towards the only place dub has truly gone—forward.

Gabe’s first two albums, 2003’s Ascend and 2005’s Bass Jihad, saw him ground himself as a producer in the multi-tempo global-Southern dub vision established by folks like legendary multi-instrumental producer-naut Bill Laswell. But while Laswell stretched out his compositions in an ethereal jazz-influenced way, Gabe maintained a more compact aesthetic that reflected the edgy grit of the post-punk/second-wave hip-hop era during which he came up.

By the time he self-released his third album, Anarchy and Alchemy, in 2008, Gabe had started honing in on an electronically infused reggae framework that both anticipated the breakout of dubstep and introduced his consistent use of modern dubwise MCs like Jahdan Blakkamore, Juakali and Dr. Israel, all of whom also appear on Raggabass Resistance.

Drenched in analogue warmth and released both digitally and on heavy vinyl, Raggabass‘s nine tracks comprise Gabe’s most focused manifesto on what eclectic roots- dub music can sound like in the digital age.

Between the driving rhythm and compelling dub-poetry of “Is This Revolution” featuring The Spaceape…

 
…the quasi-Andalusian one-drop vibes of “Draw the Line” featuring Dr. Israel and Gogol Bordello MC Pedro Erazo…

 
…and the heavily psychedelic “Live and Luv,” which features old-school MC U-Roy and bass by Bauhaus’s David J…

 
…you know you’re getting into some eclectic territory here.

But cuts like the rocksteady-infused “Nearly There” featuring veteran Brixton UK rhymer Brother Culture…

 
…and the mega-rootsy “Silent Warrior” featuring new-school singer/MC P.J. Higgins

 
…find Gabriel showing ultimate respect for the dubwise tradition as he seeks to launch it deep into this new century.

And as the product of a successful Kickstarter campaign, the beautifully designed Raggabass Resistance also serves as yet more proof of the kind of quality package artists can offer up in a crowdfunding situation.

Raggabass Resistance is available in various formats via Destroy All Concepts, Juno, Beatport, and the other usual venues…

 
Reggae singer/session keyboardist/producer Lloyd Charmers’s death in London a few days ago brings into sharp focus the steady passing of musicians from a generation that saw Jamaica become independent during their 20s. But it also sees the passing of one of the island nation’s premier producers of the dirty reggae song artform.

Charmers was born Lloyd Tyrell in 1946 in the Trench Town district of Kingston, Jamaica, and very little is documented of his early life. After getting his feet wet in Jamaica’s late-‘50s shuffle R&B scene, Charmers started his first group, the Charmers in 1962 with Roy Wilson, and after they split, he kept using the Charmers name for many of his subsequent records. 

When The Charmers split, he joined Slim Smith and Jimmy Riley in The Uniques, a group that unleashed a crucial clutch of hits like “My Conversation”…
 

 
…and others which in true Jamaican style would be redone and revived as a “riddim” countless times to generate a bunch of other hits for the dancehalls, as represented by this mix…
 

 
After the jump: More on the Charmers legacy…

Nicky Thomas delivers…
 
The Old Grey Whistle Test was only in its second year on BBC2 when producer Rowan Ayers presented this reggae showcase in Edinburgh in 1973.

The lineup is almost completely comprised of Jamaican artists who had settled in London after touring Europe off of hits they scored in the British charts. The notable exception is the specially flown-in MC Dennis Alcapone, who delivers two of the three original tunes in this collection of excerpts (the other is Winston Groovy’s “I’m a Believer”—the one written by Mulby Thompson of Trojan Records, not Neil Diamond). It’s pretty rare to see footage from this early on of a reggae MC like Alcapone in front of a live band—until the late ‘70s, they were pretty much relegated to chatting over instrumentals at sound system dances.

After the agile Cimarons cover Bill Withers’s “Ain’t No Sunshine,” they back nearly all the other artists, until an all-white band pops up to back the Pioneers. The late Nicky Thomas offers up a compelling highlight with his paroxysmal covers of Syl Johnson’s “Is It Because I’m Black” and The Four Preps’ “Love of the Common People.”

The program was hosted by Alex Hughes, who as Judge Dread had just scored three charting British reggae singles of his own—the lewd nursery rhymes “Big Six,” “Big Seven,” and “Big Eight”—and was the first white artist to have a reggae hit in Jamaica.

One can imagine how many mods, skinheads, soul boys and other riff-raff this broadcast kept off the street at the time.
 
Part 1
The Cimarons - “Ain’t No Sunshine”
Winston Groovy - “I’m A Believer”
Dennis Alcapone - “Cassius Clay” & “Wake Up Jamaica”

Part 2
The Marvels - “Jimmy Browne” & “One Monkey”
Nicky Thomas - “Is It Because I’m Black” & beginning of “Love of the Common People”

Part 3
Nicky Thomas - end of “Love of the Common People”
The Pioneers - “Higher & Higher” & “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”
All Star Finale - “Freedom Train”

Pt. 1
 

 
Keep yr skank up: check out parts 2 and 3 after the jump…

 
As a filmmaker who’s shot documentaries on both Lil’ Wayne and Lee “Scratch” Perry, Adam Bhala Lough thought it a good idea to cross wires a bit and let the eccentric 76-year-old dub master bestow a bit of mellow wisdom upon the drank-sippin’ 30-year-old rap supastar.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Rubber Dubber: Lee “Scratch” Perry action figure
Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Classic dub album Blackboard Jungle
Surreal Lee “Scratch” Perry beer commercials

 
Babylon is a totally engrossing 1980 British film that is set against the UK reggae and “sound system” culture of South London’s then predominantly West Indian neighborhood, Brixton.

From the DVD:

Sound system ‘toaster’ Blue and his Ital Lion crew are looking forward to a sound clash competition with rival outfit Jah Shaka. But as the event approaches, Blue’s personal life begins to unravel. Fired from his job, he beings to suspect his girlfriend is cheating on him and then one night he is brutally beaten by plain-clothes policemen. Finally, when their lock-up garage is broken into and their sound system destroyed, he cannot take any more. Increasingly angered and alienated by what he perceives to be society’s rejection of his race and his culture, Blue is compelled to respond by fighting fire with fire.

Babylon stars Brinsley Forde, the lead singer of Aswad as “Blue.” Martin Stellman (Quadrophenia) co-wrote the screenplay with director Franco Rosso. The soundtrack was scored by Slits producer Dennis Bovell and featured music by Aswad (their killer “Warrior Charge” number), Yabby U, I Roy, Michael Prophet and others. Babylon was shot by Oscar winning cinematographer Chris Menges (The Mission; The Killing Fields).

Babylon is a real treat and considered a classic today. The soundclash scene with Jah Shaka near the film’s end is just a flat-out great piece of film-making. Babylon was difficult to see until it was released on DVD in 2008, but it’s made a strong comeback since then, with prestigious screenings and a BBC broadcast as part of the “Reggae Britannia” season.

Certainly it’s a unique film, the only one of its kind to examine the harsh life of Jamaican immigrants in London during that time. Babylon represents the first time in UK cinema where British reggae culture and Rastafarianism were explored in a non-documentary. Director Rosso was raised in South London himself and knew exactly where to find visually arresting backdrops of urban decay in Brixton and Deptford.

I lived in Brixton in 1983-84 myself—where I saw Aswad play live many, many times and walked past a couple of outdoor Jah Shaka parties that I probably would not have been all that welcome at (his PA system was so loud it felt like the music was thicker than the air, like some kind of dub humidity)—so I was always curious to see this film.  It did not disappoint. Babylon perfectly evokes the growing racial tensions—and intense feelings of doom—of inner city London life during the late 70s/early 80s that ultimately culminated in the fiery Brixton riots. Highly recommended.

Mel Smith, seen in the still-frame below, has a small role as Blue’s racist employer.
 

 
Via Exile on Moan Street

 
With the east coast of America still recovering from the effects of Irene, it seems like today’s American release of Grace Jones’ album Hurricane could not have come at a more inopportune moment. But as the album was originally released in Europe in 2008 the question remains - why did it take three years for Hurricane to get an American release in the first place? Was it label hassles? Jones hassles? Or a renewed interest in the lady’s work post-Gaga?

Either way it’s still a good day for Jones fans, even the ones who already own Hurricane. The American release comes with a dub-remix album imaginatively titled Hurricane Dub, which is also being released in its own right in other territories. Hurricane Dub is highly recommended, not just for the Jones-heads out there, but for connoisseurs of dub in general. It’s excellent. In fact it’s maybe even better than the original album, and yes I know saying that is kind of sacrilegious.

It’s a dub remix album in the true sense of the term, using just the original tracks and a shit ton of spaced out fx, mixed and processed by producer Ivor Guest (is that his real name?!). Like the dub mixes of her work from the 80s, Hurricane Dub brings the classic rimshot-heavy sound of the Compass Point All Stars to the fore, and positively drips authentic stoner atmosphere. I was actually surprised at how good this album is, and I do count myself among the hardcore Grace Jones faithful. Strangely enough though, there’s very little of this album appearing online. I hope her label are ensuring this reaches as many ears as possible! So, while you will have already seen the fantastic and terrifying video for “Corporate Cannibal”, here’s the only readily available video clip from Hurricane Dub available online:

Grace Jones - “Well Well Well Dub”
 

 
Hurricane and Hurricane Dub are available to buy here.

 
Well, this is a turn up for the books. Here is more info, via a press release from the Peter Tatchell Foundation:

Jamaican reggae singer Mista Majah P has released the world’s first pro-gay reggae album. Called Tolerance and featuring rainbow stripes on the cover, the album includes 11 songs, variously in support of same-sex marriage and adoption by gay couples, as well as attacks on homophobic bullying and the US military policy, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The tracks also feature swipes at the anti-gay prejudices of ‘murder music’ reggae singer Beenie Man and of the Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding,

Explaining why he created the album, Mista Majah P said:  “I want to counter the myths that all Jamaicans are homophobic and that all reggae music is violent and anti-gay. I’m seeking to challenge ignorance and reach out to gay people.”

“My hope is that this cd, Tolerance, will break down the homophobic stance that certain reggae artists and heads of government have taken towards the LGBTQ community. Because of the hateful songs that some performers have been singing, gay people have been threatened and harmed. Some foolish people act upon what these artists are preaching because they worship these artists like gods. My music is about tolerance. It shows that reggae music can respect gay and lesbian people. Reggae music used to be about love, peace and unity. Now it is too often about bigotry and violence. I want to bring the music back to its progressive roots,” said Mista Majah P

“Since releasing the album, Mista Majah P has received numerous death threats and has been warned to not return to Jamaica (he currently resides in California). He’s undeterred and defiant, stating that ‘murder music’ has given reggae a negative image, which is bad for the music industry and for all reggae artists,” noted Mr Tatchell.

You can hear Mista Majah P’s album Tolerance (and buy it) at cdbaby. For more info visit Mista Majah P’s website.  Here’s the album’s opening track:
 
Mista Majah P - “Love and Tolerance”
 

 
Folks, the wonderful Voltage Music label has seen fit to release my EP “Shock the Sound” today under my Shockman guise.

It features remixes of two tunes of mine by the dub & bass music talents Dubmatix, Subatomic Sound System, earlyW~Rm, and Bakir from the Spit Brothers.

You can get it on Beatport, Amazon, and iTunes.

Here’s the whole thing streamed with earlyW~Rm’s excellent remix downloadable…
 

 
…and here’s a video I put together for the tune “Shock Out”…
 

 
End of plug, thanks for your indulgence…

 
If you’re looking for some news-video manipulation that’s funkier than the the Gregory Brothers’ oft-annoying high-register hip-pop treatments, you’re in luck. Out of Kingston, Jamaica’s University of Technology comes marketing student Kevin-Sean Hamilton, who as DJ Powa created the tune and video for “Nobody Canna Cross It (Di Bus Can Swim)”, the most viral video to come out of that country.

Cut from a TVJ report on flooding from the Yallahs River in eastern Jamaica’s St. Thomas parish, “Nobody Canna Cross It” spotlights the declarations of river worker Clifton Brown, who Powa’s made into a folk hero with a sick backing track and some deft video editing. It’s a perfect example of the unique way that Jamaicans find humor in bad news—or as they say in patois, “tek serious mek laugh.”

Of course, both Brown and the song  have their own Facebook pages, and thankfully, Kingston-based videographer Simon “Sno” Thompson (a.k.a. Yosef Imagination) is looking to set up a fundraiser to help build that bridge for the people of St. Thomas.
 

 
After the jump: DJ Powa’s take on last year’s deadly unrest in Tivoli Gardens in West Kingston…