Queen Omega - Away From Babylon (Jet Star Records 2004)
I always find myself speaking about how necessary it is for an artists career to progress in stages of proper development, particularly in Reggae music. The first step of that is to develop as a young artist which is kind of broad and really could mean any variety of things. That part is so important, however, to lead into the next part, which is to produce a BIG hit. The first hit gets the foot in the door, it gets your name out and about and it puts food on your table. After that you try and achieve some level of consistency and again, this is where a young artist’s development can come in handy also because you’ve already learned consistency to some extent, albeit on a smaller scale. After that, you’ll set your eyes internationally and you’ll do that in terms of stage shows and festivals around the globe and, of course, ALBUMS. Making a big ALBUM for an artist who releases quite a few is just as mandatory, in some cases, as the initial big tune. So what happens when you make more than one? As Queen Omega might tell you, some of them begin to get lost in the pack as that could be the ONLY excuse I could find why this album, Away From Babylon has gotten NOWHERE NEAR the attention that I believe its deserved over the past half decade. In a catalogue which is about as close to FLAWLESS as they get, it was and remains the shining star.
#1. Jahmazing Grace
Yeah, the title is kind of bad and its so bad that you’d think someone within the previous two decades or so but that doesn’t even matter as the tune itself is downright MASTERFUL! Talk about getting off to a good start, Jahmazing Grace is the type of attention getter that sets a vibe that not only stays with you throughout the album itself but itself, in retrospect, maintains as a signature tune for this great album despite clearly not being the best tune but arguably the most memorable.
Line of the song: “Anyhow you diss the Ras mi know you ahgo sorry. We a righteous people, wi nuh deal in folly”
#2. Away From Babylon
This one was pure knowledge over SWEETNESS. I’ll always say that the masterful bit of Reggae music, Roots Reggae in particular, is when someone can actually make a song ENTERTAINING and EDUCATIONAL at the same time. If you can develop such a tune that is dominated by such a serious message that those who actually pay attention to such things have more than enough material to focus on and at the same time give the crowd who just want something to move to - GREATNESS. The title tune for this album was a GRAND example of that with is gorgeous repatriation theme behind that sweet ass bounce.
Line of the song: “Stepping out of the confusion and the commotion. Take a rest from the West and ease your tension”
#3. De Youth
Having none of the more ear pleasing qualities of the of the title track, De Youth was PURELY aimed at Reggae heads across the Abyssinians , especially the younger ones. This song was really weird the first time you hear it and especially at the beginning: The first few lines are almost PURELY clichéd (and presented as such) and standard Roots Reggae fare and she then BLAZES the majority of the rest of the tunes as almost to alert the listener that that tired ass road is not the one she plans on traveling on this song.
Line of the song: “Queen Omega is the mother of creation. Send this one in a song to the nation”
#4. Friends For Life
Reggae heads will almost immediately recognize the big riddim backing Friends For Life (the M-16) and almost just as immediately recognize that Queen Omega puts the classic piece through its paces about as good as anyone who has had the privilege of voicing it at some point. This tune is HUGE! What is probably most interesting in from an instant point of view is the fact that the tune doesn’t go down the route of simply being about Queen Omega and her best friend(s) or family or such. That would be nice but too easy. Queen Omega, instead, identifies her friend as His Majesty and, by extension, the world itself.
Line of the song: “Oh what a friend I FOUND IN JAH! He leadeth me besides the water. Come sanctify baptize your daughter, so my days can be longer”
#5. Ganja Baby
SWEET! Herbalist tunes don’t even need to be like this! I don’t need my ganja tunes to be this good. They should appear on a song and give you nice opportunity to take a mental break but apparently Queen Omega just doesn’t like playing by the rules! Ganja Baby is one of the best damn songs of its kind that you’ll ever hear anywhere and wonderfully (depending on how you look at the matter) Queen Omega apparently has no problem practicing what she preaches as the first bit of news we heard from her in this new year was that she had gotten arrested in her native Trinidad for. . . Being a Ganja Baby.
Line of the song: “. . . blaze up the chalice, soon mi build like ganja palace, inna wonderland like the one Alice!” (WHAT!) (MADNESS!)
#6. Jah Jah Jah
Getting back to the heart of the matter on Away From Babylon, Queen Omega once again tunes herself in lyrically and delivers one of the most DEVASTATING tunes in that respect, not only on this album but of her entire career to my opinion. The song is SPARKLING and, again, like the title track, it takes its VAST amount of knowledge and squeezes it into a vibe that is downright addictive and never mention that the Queen stretches her underrated vocals near their capacity and continues to thrill in a praising tune for His Majesty of EPICALLY BIBLICAL proportions.
Line of the song: “KEEP! ME! AS THE! APPLE of thy eye”
#7. One Time
With its big and beautiful old school vibes, One Time proved to be quite the lyrical mystery for even the most attentive of listeners. The basis of the tune (at least the basis of its chorus) is to espouse on the very nature of life and that we only get one time to take this ‘journey’ as Queen Omega puts it. While the veerses themselves seem to go more in the direction of general, if not social at times, upliftment. HOWEVER, the way that upliftment, or the message of that upliftment, is presented both in terms of emotional/spiritual as well as in terms of a tangible aspect. Thus, the listener should be left with the message of you only have one time to live, so make the best of it and leave the world better than you found it. Beautiful stuff.
Line of the song: “There are ups and there are downs but keep a smile and not a frown. Seek the right don’t do the wrong. YOUR REWARD WILL BE A CROWN”
#8. Know The Business
Lady Versatile might’ve been a good stage name for Jeneille Osbourne had Queen Omega not worked out so well for her. Know The Business features a STRAIGHT FORWARD Roots/Dancehall DJ style from the Queen in a crazy and dynamic aggressive style. What moves here in such a direction in this song? Apparently she’s a bit perturbed as some maybe not giving her the respect or the potential avenues of successes as her male peers and trying to take advantage of her. That’s not happening here and as she’s shown occasionally throughout the years: The woman has a VERY sharp edge to her when she needs it.
Line of the song: “If you hear me crying then mi inna crisis. When you see smile, mi a hold a Isis”
#9. Looking For Love
In rather stark contrast to the tune which precedes it, Looking For Love shows a Queen Omega completely dulling the edge in search for the special man in here life, or does she? Its interesting how the tune progresses as on one hand she’s almost clearly talking about A GOOD MAN (even going as far as to use ‘earthly’ terms such as ‘masculine’ to define him) and then later she’s speaking about THE BEST MAN, as in The Almighty. However, as I would assume the Queen would argue: You cannot truly have the former, without the latter.
Line of the song: “Tell me how can you not love a virtuous woman. A Queen with the knowledge and the wisdom. Who can give you comfort and nuff passion. Passion nah ration, in any fashion” (MADNESS!)
#10. Mama
How many times have you heard Jah _______ making some half hearted or just downright BAD tune for his mother? Well, not only is this not a male as in Jah Whatever but Queen Omega’s Mama is far from halfhearted and even further from the BAD. The tune is beautiful as the Queen (and her sister apparently, Yolandie Osbourne who sings back ups) gives big thanks and praises to the Queen Mum.
Line of the song: “Mama you my everything, wish you all the lovely things. Love you for the joy you bring. Glory HalleluJah, praises to The Father, thank you for my Mama”
#11. Rise Natty Rise
Queen Omega and company tapped into King Marley’s catalogue to come up with this GEM of a tune as Rise Natty Rise rides the familiar piece to Marley’s timeless Natty Dread tune. With such lofty standards as those, it would be difficult to do something that would impress the man himself. Me? Far less ‘lofty’ and downright simple as far as Queen Omega is concerned. However, with the HUGE inspirational vibes delivered on the tune, I’m sure Mr. Marley would have been more than pleased and approving of the set.
Line of the song: “The Rastaman is a righteous man and he is ORDAINED to lead the people away from confusion”
#12 More Joy
MAMMOTH! Don’t let the (crazily) stereotypical title confuse you and dissuade you from listening this one because doing so will make you miss one of the biggest tunes on the album. This one isn’t as seamless as the two earlier tunes which do it but More Joy definitely incorporates the entertaining and educational vibes in the same tune and in doing so produces arguably what is the best sonically pleasing chorus on Away From Babylon.
Line of the song: “The Kingdom Of Jah is in me. So I’ll be the best that I can be. Gotta live my life righteously, for the Almighty”
#13. Greedy Bwoy
Way down here and we get another one of the tunes which has become a definitive signature track from the Away From Babylon. The tune almost completes the range of emotions that you would think that would come from an all encompassing GREAT album as it features of couple of quite funny moments (and the vibes itself is one which is kind of playful and easy going). You take that and combine it with a message that is quite good and USEFUL actually and those playful vibes don’t at all begin to take away from the fact that the song was FANTASTIC.
Line of the song: “Mi give him di moon, him ask fi di stars. Give him di stars, he bawl out fi mars!”
#14. 22 Questions
Now what the hell! Out of all the people to make a Hip-Hop remake tune you’d think Queen Omega would be one of the last (right before Jah Rubal) but 22 Questions a remake of 50 Cent’s tune of the same name (minus one Question) a few years back is actually a BIG tune. I think the very premise of the tune is pretty good (and I thought so even when it was 50 Cent doing it) but even more interesting, perhaps, because it’s a female (and you know that probably the male’s response to most of the Questions would be somewhere between “HELL NO” and “maybe”) and of course, its Queen Omega. Can’t miss and it was a wonderful change up.
Line of the song: “. . .for you I put my life on the line but would you have done the same in another time?”
#15. Deliver Me
Fittingly, a great album would go out on the greatest note possible, leaving the listener holding the project in as high esteem as possible. Deliver was and remains my choice as the best tune on Away From Babylon and I regard it as some of her greatest work altogether. The tune is downright POUNDING and HYPNOTIZING and sometimes both at the same time. It might not actually serve the purpose for unifying (what I think) is the main point of the album, however, what it did, in my opinion, was to provide Queen Omega and specifically the Away From Babylon with a ‘musical reference point’. Meaning: This was bound to be a point which we would hear on the album (that “point” being seeking enjoyment of ALL KINDS within the light of His Majesty, in every way possible) and when you put in the last position you almost kind of direct attention to it and in doing so give listeners who may not be as familiar with the music a rather striking and IMMEDIATE place to go and say, “I loved this song”. So did I.
Line of the song: THE ENTIRE FUCKING SONG!
Synopsis: Its kind of weird, almost, for me to write about Away From Babylon within this context because if you actually pick up the album (and you should go and do that right now) what you’ll see on the very first page of the liner notes, just on the other side of the cover, is a very (boring looking) nice piece on the artist and shortly on this album in particular as well. That piece is written by the one John Masouri, who is one of the best regarded and simply one of the best writers of Reggae in the world and certainly he does a great job with this one as he did with so many of the other Jet Star projects that he wrote on (you would often see him on the Reggae Max series if I recall correctly), so forgive me if I unintentionally ‘borrow’ from his sentiments (although I haven’t read his piece here from beginning to end in years probably). The most glaring idea I took away from Queen Omega’s Away From Babylon album is kind of a twofold thought on the same track (I THINK). The first piece is the overall message of the album. While it is titled Away From Babylon, which would almost immediately make one think that it’s a repatriation based record and although I don’t think I’d ever give Jet Star credit for being that cunning on their own, it KIND of does that. However, Queen Omega’s repatriation doesn’t appear to be a physical one inasmuch as it is a MENTAL one. On quite a few of the tunes here, even on Deliver me and, most remarkably, on the title track itself, its clear that she regards ‘repatriation’ (which is a term I don’t believe she actually says, in any form, AT ALL on the album) and being Away From Babylon as a spiritual place. She says, starting the first full verse on the title track, “I wanna be with my Lion, Conquering of The Tribe of Judah”. She doesn’t say where she believes that place to be (although she does say “Mt. Zion” which is a place, again, more associated with the spiritual realm), instead she leaves it to be quite obviously in the presence of His Majesty, wherever he may deem fit. Also, she does go on to mention Marcus Garvey and Black Star Liner in regards to the physical world but even then Queen Omega takes it in a spiritual direction as she says, “Seven miles of Black Star Liner across JAH ocean”. I take this even further, as again, she doesn’t pinpoint a place as so many others do and would in this situation, to take it that Queen Omega wouldn’t actually rather leave it as simple as ‘Afrika”. No, I think she would ‘go’ somewhere far more simple and in doing so would give the main idea of the album. Happiness! Later on in the title track to Away From Babylon, Queen Omega begins to discuss a few of the physical world problems with living in Babylon, “A fi mi one spliff dem a gimme a case”, she says. Throughout the album, you’ll get pieces like this and some far more so than on the title track (see (or hear I should say) One Time) but almost always she lyrically retreats to comfort of His Majesty which she regards as ‘away from’ the nastiness, the corruption, the suffering and just the utter ills of society and thus, away from Babylon. Taking it so far but so well worth it (and NECESSARY) oo journey to a VIBE so strong is Queen Omega on Away From Babylon, A BONAFIDE MODERN REGGAE CLASSIC!
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