Of the many and many WONDERFUL things to coincide with Reggae and Dancehall music stretching worldwide, definitely THE greatest would be the fact that our artists are now afforded the opportunity to be marketed more and better, thus increasing their portion of the funds. You’re just now starting to see Reggae albums start getting somewhat consistent sales in the tens of thousands of copies, despite not being big household names like the Sean Pauls, Beenie Mans and Elephant Mans of the world. Bubbling near the top of the charts right now as he has been for the better part of the last year or so is Little Hero (here is where you say “WHO!”), for some reason unbeknownst to me (other than the fact that his album, Revelation, is MASSIVE) and most people. Of course that’s absolutely wonderful that such a thing could happen for him and definitely others are receiving similar attention (such as King Hopeton, who produced Revelation, with his own album King Of Kings) but something which has virtually disappeared from the Reggae landscape is the ‘underground’ album. With almost every album being available from some distributor selling in some remote corner of the planet (or online), it’s pretty difficult for any artist of note to release a project which just seems to resonate with the hardcore fans and go pretty much unnoticed by the casual masses. The only thing we have similar nowadays is this exodus like movement to the Far East where, virtually every other month or so we see some artist of note release an album strictly for the Japanese market but even those projects are making it easier back to this side of the planet through various means. What used to happen was that an artist (usually, but not always, one of a VERY active degree) would release more than one album, around the same time, with one receiving the lion’s share of the publicity, while the other, released almost always for some very low ranking label and one which sometimes just would all but disappear. These albums have been replaced by countless and basically untraceable mixtapes and only occasionally does such a thing happen but if you were go through the not too distant past you see some examples of BIG underground albums. Probably the best example is Beenie Man’s 2000 album Trendsetter which has since gone on to become a ‘cult-classic’ of sorts. That album arrived just before the Doctor’s Grammy winning Art & Life album and was definitely the better album for Dancehall heads (it was released by his own home label at the time, Shocking Vibes). Of course, the ultra-active Sizzla has had more than one. He actually (and technically) had more than one in the same year, back in 2002 when all the buzz was surrounding his VP release, Da Real Thing, the underground album Hosanna would find a very nice audience as would the continuously delayed and downright mysterious Up In Fire. And, most recently he delivered Jah Bless Me With Life in 2007 when the world was well in tune with his I-Space. There have been other very nice ones such as Mad Cobra’s Snypa Way in 2002 and Perfect’s Rasta Rebel which have gone on beneath the radar, yet done so in GRAND fashion.
An artist who would have EASILY been one of the first choices to have such an album, in lieu of the mixtapes he released almost DAILY around the same time on his own, would have been Vybz Kartel who would release his own official debut album, Up 2 Di Time in late 2003 on Greensleeves Records. Kartel had attracted SO MUCH attention at the time, due, in large part probably to his relationship working with famed Dancehall ‘Warlord’, the legendary Bounty Killer, but on his own strength as he had developed a style which hadn’t been seen in only a single artist, probably EVER in the game. Kartel’s rise to prominence, in retrospect, was probably unlike anything I had ever seen in Dancehall music and since then he has definitely (musically speaking) fulfilled on much of the potential he showed back then. Kartel made his name primarily working alongside Don Corleone who produced the majority of his Up 2 Di Time, but he also worked for a variety of other names as well. Thus, after linking with Greensleeves for the debut album (and another two since then also on the label), Kartel then, bright and early in the following year, 2004, went on to release his own underground album, Timeless. This album was basically a compilation of nearly ALL of the tunes he had voiced for his next largest source of producers after Corleone, King Jammy and his extended family of producers. Timeless was released on what I think is Jammy’s own album label, Father & Son Records (and distributed by one of the King’s songs Baby G) and was a Jamaican release. Now because of the aforementioned buzz around the artist, it made it outside of the island fairly quickly, and I, living in the States at the time, had it no more than a week after its full on official release date if I recall correctly but was still far out shadowed by Up 2 Di Time and I would be willing to bet that even though Kartel was (and arguably still is) an artist who SPECIFICALLY captures the attentions of only the hardcore Dancehall fans (even though he is much more popular on an international level now than he would have been at the time Timeless was released, although still not among the TOP names in that respect) who would have flooded the place to get that album, most of those fans probably don’t have Timeless and maybe have not even heard of it. Be that the case, its definitely unfortunate as Timeless was BY FAR the more hardcore album between it and UP 2 Di Time. U2DT wasn’t a ‘soft’ album by any stretch of the word but it was far more POLISHED and FRESH than Timeless. Greensleeves chose that album to show off the rather strange qualities than Kartel possessed at their finest and most marketable. Timeless, on the other hand, had much more of a distinguishable EDGE to it. It was dark, grimy and everything which would own up to that underground classic label which it would eventually earn.
Alongside the obvious shift in vibes between Up 2 Di Time and Timeless, another very obvious difference is the music itself. Don Corleone has a very ‘loose’ style of production, his riddims are ALL OVER THE PLACE, whereas the Jammy’s crew has a more structured (albeit harsher at the same time) and straight forward style and it’s also, from Kartel‘s point of view, more lyrical (again, while harsher). Exhibit A for that on Vybz Kartel’s album Timeless would be the opener, the big combination we had hoped to see on U2DT but one which definitely fits better on Timeless, the SCATHING Maths Automatic alongside former longtime mentor Bounty Killer. Listening to this tune now as opposed to back then, it used to be well known that Kartel wrote for Bounty but exactly which tunes and how many was unknown; Maths Automatic is CLEARLY a Kartel construct. From the words drawn and the patterns flowed, this tune was a big combination of a (DUH!) very violent nature. Killer has gone on to serve similar roles on tunes with other disciples like Busy Signal and Aidonia, but this one would definitely be one of the most wicked even still. Speaking of the Killer, the next tune on Timeless should sound familiar as it flows on the same ‘stringy’ riddim which Bounty Killer shot out on with his HUGE tune Fitness, John John’s G-String riddim. This tune, My Hubby (aka Bag Gyal), doesn’t even approach those levels, but does feature quite a bit of HEAVY wordplay as is to be expected. Easily the best tune of the opening few on Vybz Kartel’s Timeless was the third, Big Man A Big Man on CJ’s Engine riddim. This one was a bonafide Jamaican hit for awhile (and you STILL hear it playing in certain areas) and it really did a lot of damage for the artist. Its also VINTAGE Vybz Kartel (if such a thing exists) and I can remember being damn near hypnotized by the way the man threw together his words and phrases. He doesn’t say a whole lot in terms of the tune itself, but Big Man A Big Man is BRILLIANT.
Timeless is loaded with tunes which ultimately didn’t do much internationally but were pretty big locally and definitely went to solidify his status. None were bigger, to my ears at least, than one of my favourite Kartel songs of all time, the WICKED Nah Climb alongside member of the Jammy’s camp, Ward 21 crew over Jam 2’s SICK Amharic riddim. I’ve LOVED the crazy wordplay on this one since the very first time I heard it and was kind of miffed that it wasn’t on the U2DT album (although it was on Ward 21’s second album if I remember correctly), but it fits FAR better on Timeless actually. LARGE tune and the album’s best. The second best would probably be (if it isn’t Big Man A Big Man) the WICKED Kartel Reveal It. Going Michael Prophet style is Kartel on the tune which doesn’t quite live up to that CLASSIC standard but definitely places a nice modern spin on the legendary tune, Gunman. Kartel Reveal It is high-tech Dancehall at it’s finest and it just KNOCKS in and you’ll love it guaranteed. Not far behind Kartel Reveal It (literally) is Stop Nuh Look Nuh Listen. This one is pretty complicated but it grows on you after awhile, in spite of its erratic and damn near frustrating melody (or lack thereof) at times. A Dem alone is WICKED. It was also another type of subterranean hit for the Portmore lyrics machine. It was Kartel’s take on the Tight Clothes and he just BUILDS the lyrics on that one! The tune is almost an over-impressive bit where Kartel clocks in with a style which is almost freestyle-like but SEAMLESS at the same time. LARGE work there. The next BIG tune going off is definitely How Wi Roll (although Di Subject isn’t bad) which hit’s a HIGH level following a downright AWKWARD opening. The riddim on this one is just KNOCKING! The lyrics are, of course, on point throughout, but I wouldn’t necessarily put them amongst the top class of Timeless, but that riddim just takes the tune to somewhere else! I recognized the tune Hot Gal [Forever] from the Toe To Toe album Kartel had with Elephant Man (which came out literally the same week as U2DT I believe) and I liked it then and it remained one of my favourites through Timeless as well. The tune just has a nice dance floor appeal to it, which isn’t exactly easy to find on this one. As Vybz Kartel’s Timeless begins to wind down you start to get some really ‘healthy surprises’ which jump up the strength of the album. The first is the STREAMLINED Ready Fe Buss It. This one, although on the surface rather typical Kartel, is probably the most MATURE song on Timeless. Go and listen to this tune and just pay attention to the vibes of it. Yeah it’s a pretty violent tune, but this is the type of song that Vybz Kartel is making RIGHT NOW, more than a half decade later. Transelator is the undeniable changeup on Timeless and it is ADDICTIVE. The song has an East Indian type of vibes to it which will CATCH you the same way it caught me about five years ago, TRUST. I mentioned there were some ‘healthy surprises’ down the stretch of Timeless, but the exception would be Face Off which features Zumjay and Wayne Marshall (two of my LEAST favourite artists honestly). It is the same anti-oral sex condemnation Kartel and Marshall tried (and scored) with Why You Doing It, but it doesn’t work AT ALL on this 1970’s R&B vibed riddim. Thankfully, Da’Ville rides in to save the day (someone should have saved the day on his recent album Ichiban) on Timeless’ closer, the very nice Caught Up. This tune is actually dominated by Da’Ville for the most part with Kartel chiming in here and there and that’s a good thing. The result is a pretty straight forward singing style which Timeless could use really to lighten things up (because you can’t call that stuff Wayne Marshall does straight forward at all) and it does that indeed and sends Timeless out on a high note.
Overall, no, of course Timeless isn’t a timeless album. And, by comparison it doesn’t stand up quite well to the Up 2 Di Time album, it’s redone counterpart which arrived a year later, More Up 2 Di Time or DEFINITELY not his most recent two pieces JMT or the BRILLIANT The Teacher’s Back, but if you’re looking at it like that, then you’re missing the point here in my opinion. What Timeless was, was an acknowledgement of a very powerful and a very unusual talent in Vybz Kartel being on the scene. If you take that and PAIR it with what because the U2DT album, then, as a whole, what you have is VERY impressive and you can do that because neither album, in and of itself, is/was a fair and accurate representation of the two or three trick pony which was Vybz Kartel (girls, guns and ganja). So, when you, you big time fan of hardcore Dancehall who didn’t know that Timeless existed because you hardly ever buy albums anyway, track it down and LOVE what you hear for the most part, remember to put in some Up 2 Di Time. Timeless was and still is an album crawling underneath the surface of publicity and being well known. It wasn’t the high glossed project with the double freestyle disc release that Up 2 Di Time turned out to be and it didn’t have a remix edition a year later. Timeless was murky, dark, disgusting and just MEAN at times. And that’s exactly why we liked it so much.
An artist who would have EASILY been one of the first choices to have such an album, in lieu of the mixtapes he released almost DAILY around the same time on his own, would have been Vybz Kartel who would release his own official debut album, Up 2 Di Time in late 2003 on Greensleeves Records. Kartel had attracted SO MUCH attention at the time, due, in large part probably to his relationship working with famed Dancehall ‘Warlord’, the legendary Bounty Killer, but on his own strength as he had developed a style which hadn’t been seen in only a single artist, probably EVER in the game. Kartel’s rise to prominence, in retrospect, was probably unlike anything I had ever seen in Dancehall music and since then he has definitely (musically speaking) fulfilled on much of the potential he showed back then. Kartel made his name primarily working alongside Don Corleone who produced the majority of his Up 2 Di Time, but he also worked for a variety of other names as well. Thus, after linking with Greensleeves for the debut album (and another two since then also on the label), Kartel then, bright and early in the following year, 2004, went on to release his own underground album, Timeless. This album was basically a compilation of nearly ALL of the tunes he had voiced for his next largest source of producers after Corleone, King Jammy and his extended family of producers. Timeless was released on what I think is Jammy’s own album label, Father & Son Records (and distributed by one of the King’s songs Baby G) and was a Jamaican release. Now because of the aforementioned buzz around the artist, it made it outside of the island fairly quickly, and I, living in the States at the time, had it no more than a week after its full on official release date if I recall correctly but was still far out shadowed by Up 2 Di Time and I would be willing to bet that even though Kartel was (and arguably still is) an artist who SPECIFICALLY captures the attentions of only the hardcore Dancehall fans (even though he is much more popular on an international level now than he would have been at the time Timeless was released, although still not among the TOP names in that respect) who would have flooded the place to get that album, most of those fans probably don’t have Timeless and maybe have not even heard of it. Be that the case, its definitely unfortunate as Timeless was BY FAR the more hardcore album between it and UP 2 Di Time. U2DT wasn’t a ‘soft’ album by any stretch of the word but it was far more POLISHED and FRESH than Timeless. Greensleeves chose that album to show off the rather strange qualities than Kartel possessed at their finest and most marketable. Timeless, on the other hand, had much more of a distinguishable EDGE to it. It was dark, grimy and everything which would own up to that underground classic label which it would eventually earn.
Alongside the obvious shift in vibes between Up 2 Di Time and Timeless, another very obvious difference is the music itself. Don Corleone has a very ‘loose’ style of production, his riddims are ALL OVER THE PLACE, whereas the Jammy’s crew has a more structured (albeit harsher at the same time) and straight forward style and it’s also, from Kartel‘s point of view, more lyrical (again, while harsher). Exhibit A for that on Vybz Kartel’s album Timeless would be the opener, the big combination we had hoped to see on U2DT but one which definitely fits better on Timeless, the SCATHING Maths Automatic alongside former longtime mentor Bounty Killer. Listening to this tune now as opposed to back then, it used to be well known that Kartel wrote for Bounty but exactly which tunes and how many was unknown; Maths Automatic is CLEARLY a Kartel construct. From the words drawn and the patterns flowed, this tune was a big combination of a (DUH!) very violent nature. Killer has gone on to serve similar roles on tunes with other disciples like Busy Signal and Aidonia, but this one would definitely be one of the most wicked even still. Speaking of the Killer, the next tune on Timeless should sound familiar as it flows on the same ‘stringy’ riddim which Bounty Killer shot out on with his HUGE tune Fitness, John John’s G-String riddim. This tune, My Hubby (aka Bag Gyal), doesn’t even approach those levels, but does feature quite a bit of HEAVY wordplay as is to be expected. Easily the best tune of the opening few on Vybz Kartel’s Timeless was the third, Big Man A Big Man on CJ’s Engine riddim. This one was a bonafide Jamaican hit for awhile (and you STILL hear it playing in certain areas) and it really did a lot of damage for the artist. Its also VINTAGE Vybz Kartel (if such a thing exists) and I can remember being damn near hypnotized by the way the man threw together his words and phrases. He doesn’t say a whole lot in terms of the tune itself, but Big Man A Big Man is BRILLIANT.
Timeless is loaded with tunes which ultimately didn’t do much internationally but were pretty big locally and definitely went to solidify his status. None were bigger, to my ears at least, than one of my favourite Kartel songs of all time, the WICKED Nah Climb alongside member of the Jammy’s camp, Ward 21 crew over Jam 2’s SICK Amharic riddim. I’ve LOVED the crazy wordplay on this one since the very first time I heard it and was kind of miffed that it wasn’t on the U2DT album (although it was on Ward 21’s second album if I remember correctly), but it fits FAR better on Timeless actually. LARGE tune and the album’s best. The second best would probably be (if it isn’t Big Man A Big Man) the WICKED Kartel Reveal It. Going Michael Prophet style is Kartel on the tune which doesn’t quite live up to that CLASSIC standard but definitely places a nice modern spin on the legendary tune, Gunman. Kartel Reveal It is high-tech Dancehall at it’s finest and it just KNOCKS in and you’ll love it guaranteed. Not far behind Kartel Reveal It (literally) is Stop Nuh Look Nuh Listen. This one is pretty complicated but it grows on you after awhile, in spite of its erratic and damn near frustrating melody (or lack thereof) at times. A Dem alone is WICKED. It was also another type of subterranean hit for the Portmore lyrics machine. It was Kartel’s take on the Tight Clothes and he just BUILDS the lyrics on that one! The tune is almost an over-impressive bit where Kartel clocks in with a style which is almost freestyle-like but SEAMLESS at the same time. LARGE work there. The next BIG tune going off is definitely How Wi Roll (although Di Subject isn’t bad) which hit’s a HIGH level following a downright AWKWARD opening. The riddim on this one is just KNOCKING! The lyrics are, of course, on point throughout, but I wouldn’t necessarily put them amongst the top class of Timeless, but that riddim just takes the tune to somewhere else! I recognized the tune Hot Gal [Forever] from the Toe To Toe album Kartel had with Elephant Man (which came out literally the same week as U2DT I believe) and I liked it then and it remained one of my favourites through Timeless as well. The tune just has a nice dance floor appeal to it, which isn’t exactly easy to find on this one. As Vybz Kartel’s Timeless begins to wind down you start to get some really ‘healthy surprises’ which jump up the strength of the album. The first is the STREAMLINED Ready Fe Buss It. This one, although on the surface rather typical Kartel, is probably the most MATURE song on Timeless. Go and listen to this tune and just pay attention to the vibes of it. Yeah it’s a pretty violent tune, but this is the type of song that Vybz Kartel is making RIGHT NOW, more than a half decade later. Transelator is the undeniable changeup on Timeless and it is ADDICTIVE. The song has an East Indian type of vibes to it which will CATCH you the same way it caught me about five years ago, TRUST. I mentioned there were some ‘healthy surprises’ down the stretch of Timeless, but the exception would be Face Off which features Zumjay and Wayne Marshall (two of my LEAST favourite artists honestly). It is the same anti-oral sex condemnation Kartel and Marshall tried (and scored) with Why You Doing It, but it doesn’t work AT ALL on this 1970’s R&B vibed riddim. Thankfully, Da’Ville rides in to save the day (someone should have saved the day on his recent album Ichiban) on Timeless’ closer, the very nice Caught Up. This tune is actually dominated by Da’Ville for the most part with Kartel chiming in here and there and that’s a good thing. The result is a pretty straight forward singing style which Timeless could use really to lighten things up (because you can’t call that stuff Wayne Marshall does straight forward at all) and it does that indeed and sends Timeless out on a high note.
Overall, no, of course Timeless isn’t a timeless album. And, by comparison it doesn’t stand up quite well to the Up 2 Di Time album, it’s redone counterpart which arrived a year later, More Up 2 Di Time or DEFINITELY not his most recent two pieces JMT or the BRILLIANT The Teacher’s Back, but if you’re looking at it like that, then you’re missing the point here in my opinion. What Timeless was, was an acknowledgement of a very powerful and a very unusual talent in Vybz Kartel being on the scene. If you take that and PAIR it with what because the U2DT album, then, as a whole, what you have is VERY impressive and you can do that because neither album, in and of itself, is/was a fair and accurate representation of the two or three trick pony which was Vybz Kartel (girls, guns and ganja). So, when you, you big time fan of hardcore Dancehall who didn’t know that Timeless existed because you hardly ever buy albums anyway, track it down and LOVE what you hear for the most part, remember to put in some Up 2 Di Time. Timeless was and still is an album crawling underneath the surface of publicity and being well known. It wasn’t the high glossed project with the double freestyle disc release that Up 2 Di Time turned out to be and it didn’t have a remix edition a year later. Timeless was murky, dark, disgusting and just MEAN at times. And that’s exactly why we liked it so much.
Rated 4/5 stars
Father & Son Records
2004
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