The Worst of The Best

Reggae music is BY FAR the ‘best’ musical art form in the entire world. The vibes are the most powerful, our lyricists are the strongest and it is the single most meaningful music in the world and by the year 2030, Reggae music shall take over the entire planet: This, I guarantee! Our artists are also the most talented and simply the best and always have been and everyone knows it. . . But they don’t always get it right! Be it because of terribly misguided crossover attempts, overworking one’s talents or simply just being BAD, we have definitely had our fair share of BULLSHIT and on every level. Thus, I submit, for your (dis) approval, some of the finest of our artists at their absolute worst. The worst Reggae albums of the Best Reggae artists.

{note 1: Studio albums only}

{note 2: With one exception, that Jet Star/Charm nonsense does not count}

{note 3: The artists and albums are not listed in any particular order with respect to each other}

{note 4: I do consider every album on this list BAD in some way, there are active artists who aren’t on this list who I don’t feel qualify, because they haven’t had such BAD material (I.e. Capleton, Luciano, Lutan Fyah, Natural Black, Jah Mason. . .}

{note 5: No Soca}

ELEPHANT MAN

- Let’s Get Physical [Bad Boy Entertainment, 2008]

Normally when someone releases a ‘crossover’ album they tend to at least try to make it accessible to the fans who the artist came up with initially. Puff Daddy and the powers that be at Bad Boy seemed to be absolutely OBLIVIOUS to this trend and, in fact, seemed to do the exact opposite and essentially made a Dancehall influenced Hip-Hop album. Of course, that, in of itself, isn’t necessarily a bad thing but Let’s Get Physical ended up providing almost NOTHING at all for Dancehall heads, yours truly included.

TURBULENCE

- Notorious: The Album [VP Records, 2006]

In retrospect, throughout Turbulence’s extremely VARIED career, given the circumstances surrounding the Notorious album, you almost have to regard it as the worst of his obese bunch. Still it may very well be his most high profile release to date and given the very fact that so many people, me included, had been saying how necessary it was for him to now score that truly BIG hit in his career, the album that tried to build on the tune which eventually became that “BIG hit”, Notorious, not only didn’t do it justice, but it also included a strange and bastardized version of it. 2 thumbs down.

BUSHMAN

- My Meditation [Jet Star/Charm, 2004]

I make Bushman’s gutter dwelling My Meditation the exception to my general ‘No Charm/Penitentiary/Rude Bwoy Records rule because it was certainly one of special circumstances. The first of said circumstances is that My Meditation is actually another album, 2001’s A Better Place, thrown into a next project with three added tunes. The second, and most extraordinary, is the fact that I can recall reading an interview with Busman himself and he said that a dispute he had with his manager at the time had led her to link him with a producer in the UK (obviously Stingray) to do an album. Frustrated, Bushman went to do the album but he ADMITTED that he didn’t do his best material on the project. If an artist tells you, himself, that it wasn’t his best, who the hell am I to disagree. In contrast to the other things he’s done, My Meditation/A Better Place was HORRIBLE.

SPRAGGA BENZ

- Uncommonly Smooth [Capitol, 1995]

Out of all the times to not do your best, this simply wasn’t it. Having had the fortunate situation of emerging in the time where international record labels were doing any and every thing in their powers to find the ‘next Shabba Ranking’, Spragga Benz, like almost every other halfway decent Dancehall DJ of the time, got a deal with a major label in Capitol. The link produced Uncommonly Smooth which was about as USELESS an album that there ever was! You’ll find worse albums (probably even some on this list) and you’ll find FARRRRRR better but they all would seem to serve a greater purpose than this one which, in retrospect, basically never existed. Unsurprisingly, Capitol and Spragga parted ways after Uncommonly Awfu. . . I mean Smooth and we thank them for doing that as, a few years later he headed back to VP Records who had released his debut album, Jack It Up the year before, to produce Fully Loaded, which was golden.

MIDNITE/VAUGHN BENJAMIN

- Thru & True [Rastafaria, 2006]

What the hell! Vaughn Benjamin and all of his crazy ass fans (of which I am one about two or three times a year) will maintain that he is one of the very few genuinely BRILLIANT musicians in the world and one of the handful or so that the world has ever seen altogether. Why? Well, because he. . . Well he is. Few artists and few people in general seem to have such a unique perspective on life on EVERY single level and even fewer have the ability to express that through words and musical words no less. HOWEVER, every now and then it seems that Benjamin’s brain power gets the best of him and he produces material which is either SO personal, SO introspective or just SO DAMN STRANGE that not too many people can appreciate it. Thru & True is by far one of those as it has become the Rubik’s Cube of Reggae albums.

BEENIE MAN

- Tropical Storm [Virgin Records, 2002]

Back in the day when I was overrating things based on how much I liked the particular artist, I gave Tropical Storm 4 stars. Of course, its probably about half of that in terms of quality and maybe even less and, in retrospect, hellaciously disappointing. The album had a crazy budget and brought in some of the finest talents from all over the world - The Hip-Hop world, of course- but seemed to forget that its artist was a Dancehall artist trying to do a little Hip-Hop and DEFINITELY not the other way around. As someone else on Amazon unforgettably put it, “more like a rainy day than a tropical storm”!

Norris Man

- Heat Is On [Home & Away, 2007]

Norris Man is an interesting candidate for this list because he, like Turbulence, is an artist that I haven’t had much nice things to say about within the past couple of years. But he, again, like Turbulence (who he, oddly enough, is related to), is so TALENTED that you just hate to see them doing such sub-par material. The album widely regarded as Norris Man’s worst, the rather uneventful Hey Woman, in my opinion is quite easily better than Heat Is On which had a foundation of being BORING as hell and boringly tried to build on that foundation with tired and clichéd ass symbolism and material. The album seemed like it so badly wanted to use Norris Man’s style as the focal point but Norris Man, himself, didn’t seem to have it quite going (except on This Morning, because that was one sweet ass tune!).

MAD COBRA

- Milkman [Capitol, 1996]

The single WORST fucking album on this list! I was kind of falling out of touch with Cobra around this time, when I was growing up he was definitely one of my favourites but I hadn’t heard anything too good from him in awhile (mind you, I got this one probably 2000-2001) and Milkman certainly didn’t help things. I always say that there’s nothing worst than mediocre Dancehall but I’m wrong! What’s worst than mediocre Dancehall? Bad Dancehall and Milkman is it, incarnate. And here’s to hoping that Capitol doesn’t restart that Reggae wagon anytime soon!

SIZZLA KALONJI

- Addicted [Drop Di Bass Records, 2008]

Not Soul Deep, not Better Tomorrow, not Rise To The Occasion, not Stay Focus (which I liked) and not a handful of a few others (like Jah Bless Me With Life) which are generally regarded as Kalonji’s worst albums to date earn that title like Addicted did in my opinion. Why? Here’s the thing. ALL of those other albums feature something which is pretty useful, in terms of style. It may not have been GOOD (and in most cases it wasn’t) but unless you REALLY like listening to Sizzla do that moaning/wailing he’s been doing for years, largely over the span of an ENTIRE album with virtually no relief, then you had absolutely no business with Addicted AT ALL (but if you’re reading this, you probably bought it anyway. Be honest!).

ANTHONY B

- Untouchable [Pyramid, 2004]

Everything was in place for this album to be really really bad! It had all the elements: It was by far Anthony B’s most high profile release at the time (and may still be actually) as it was featured in different international magazines and had a big video for it also; it had high profile international combinations with Wyclef Jean, Bonecrusher and even Snoop Dogg and they even threw a video on the disc just to make you want it even more. However, the typically rock solid and consistent Anthony B delivered what was clearly his worst album to date (the only other thing even close would have been Justice Fight which I don’t believe he had much to do with actually) in my opinion but thankfully he would soon be back in form. One of the few albums which actually lived up in every way to its title. Untouchable indeed: If you see it, DO NOT TOUCH!

BOUNTY KILLER

- Next Millennium [TVT, 1998]

Call this another Bushman-like situation as Bounty Killer would eventually grow to criticize Baby Cham and Dave Kelly for Cham’s debut double set album, Wow. . . The Story being too much of a crossover attempt. Of course he, himself, would know as two years before Wow, there was Next Millennium which was about three or four GOOD Dancehall tunes (Can’t Believe Mi Eye, Eagle & Di Hawk and Woman A Trail Mi) surrounded by absolute USELESS material that bordered between Dancehall and Hip-Hop. The very fact that there was good material here even made it worse because you simply had to pay attention to it (unlike Uncommonly Smooth) and couldn’t write it off completely, which is what it probably deserved.