I often speak of these types of ‘hybrid’ artists who can equally or even at the same time drift their vibes between what we’d consider Roots Reggae and what we may consider Dancehall. These artists, in one way or another, simply dominate the current landscape of Roots Reggae and when you actually list them out, you see that they have for quite awhile and have been one of the most influential groups of artists that Reggae music has ever seen. The two most immediately visible members of this group (in the most casual scope of the music) would be Buju Banton and Capleton. The two have a pretty LITERAL line in terms of their actual mixing of the vibes where they spent the first half of their time in the music doing Dancehall music and later, after changing the route they walk in life and ultimately their music in full, they became artists who weren’t predominately Roots Reggae artists, in the traditional sense (MOST TIMES), but instead, they became these very interesting kind of djaying Roots artists. It sounds quite complicated, I’m sure, but just think now to ALL of the artists who came from that bunch such as Sizzla, Anthony B, Determine and to the newer artists who I mention each and every review (biggup Lutan Fyah). Now think about Reggae and Roots Reggae, in particular, if these artists (who DEFINITELY include Queen Ifrica) never existed. That group definitely isn’t one which you could call underrated by any stretch of the word, however, there are certain artists who, in one way or another, who would just as definitely be underrated and not in the normal sense. Of course, I could mention the rather standard response to such a situation by saying that people like Junior Kelly, Jah Mason and an endless stream of Virgin Island artists are underrated and they are. They’re underrated in the sense of today and eventually, be it through their own progression (and antiquity) where history will remember them as the brilliant talents that they are/were or, in the case of the VI artists, when their music becomes more and more worldwide. No, this is a very special type of underrated. So special is it that I can literally only think of TWO artists who fall into this category, one would be Prezident Brown and the next would be Louie Culture. These artists, in terms of their standing in the music, are very strange because they’ve never really had to make the ‘shift’ as great as Buju or Capleton (or Spragga most recently), but the changes they’ve made have definitely grown to solidify them and their talents as well. And while I think the still pretty active Brown may be in the process of gaining that next step up recognition (new album out, Common Prosperity), Louie Culture may even be a special case, within another special case.
Why so special (Mavado)? If you put the kind of dancehall ‘calls’ into action and preface someone by simply walking up to a random group of Dancehall heads and saying something such as, “Gyal Flexx!”, you’re likely to get a response of, “time to have sex!” The same (even more so) would go if you were to say, “Sim simma” and then receive, “who got the keys to my bimma” as a response. Well, Louie Culture gave to the world, on his signature track, the popular call of, “I was born to be free”, with the response being, “cause me a old ganga lee, ganga lee”. The tune has become just as much Louie Culture’s calling card as it has become one of the more memorable refrains in Dancehall history (it was also quite popular amongst the Hip-Hop heads, as were both Beenie Man’s Who Am I and Mad Cobra’s Flex which were the previously mentioned ‘call’ tunes). Therefore, with his status being rather strong amongst a VERY hardcore (and thus, small) group of Dancehall and Hip-Hop faithful, Louie Culture’s actual place in the music is often marked and looked upon incorrectly, (more likely) INCOMPLETELY or even not at all in some cases. So, you may not know that his TRUE talents lie more solidly in the Roots arena, despite his Dancehall successes. Having worked extensively with Roots labels such as Xterminator, Bobby Digital’s Digital B and Star Trail, Culture’s strength has ALWAYS been in Roots, but, again, you wouldn’t think of his as a name alongside some of these BIG name new half Roots and half Dancehall artists because of his very odd standing. Another piece of evidence of that fact would be his debut album, Ganga Lee from VP Records in 1995 (and you can tell by who released it, that Culture was once thought to be a big deal) which was a PURE hybrid (if such a thing exists) (and it doesn’t) of Roots and Dancehall and it showed what very few people seem to recall to this day: Louie Culture is VERY talented. He is probably one of the single most talented artists of the past two decades or so. After that album, Culture seemed to take a more occasional approach to recording, but he did give us at least one more piece (and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him one day have another). No. It wasn’t another from VP or Greensleeves (where he would have seemed to be a natural somewhere along the line). Instead, Louie Culture’s sophomore album, The Uprising, came via producer ‘Justice’ Halsall’s once pretty strong Reggae Central imprint. The same label is pretty well known amongst the Reggae underground for released a Sizzla album by the name of Hosanna, a year before in 2002 and after The Uprising, they promptly (apparently) proceeded to vanish from the face of the earth. However, between the two projects, they definitely left a rather large and prominent ‘calling card’ for fans to remember them by for their downright WICKED artist selection in terms of who to work with (after The Uprising, reportedly a release from Luciano which never materialized was on the way). The album itself was very impressive and it remains, to my ears, one of the harder to find gems of the past decade and it’s really a shame that it maybe forever relegated to being only even known to the hardcore Reggae fans. As if we needed more evidence to see just how underrated and underappreciated the SERIOUS talents of Louie Culture are, The Uprising’s standing is another LARGE chuck of just that.
Louie Culture has a very rugged type of style. I hesitate to use the tired phrase ‘rough around the edges’ (because it is truly TIRED), but that is exactly what his style is. However, when you really begin to listen to the artist, his skill and adroitness at wordplay genuinely comes to the forefront. Coming to the forefront first of Louie Culture’s album, The Uprising, is a very interesting (and brief) a cappella intro which declares Louie Culture’s allegiances and goal of the album. The intro also leads us into the very first musical selection on The Uprising album which is the album’s dazzling title track. This song is a straight Roots tune, but comes across so nicely paced (it almost sounds like a dance song at some points) and it’s just KNOCKING. The tune touches on a variety of different aspects of ‘the uprising’, with the prevailing vibes (at least in my opinion) being that wickedness, in general, and those who promote are going to have to deal with ‘the uprising’, whether they like it or not. The tune is definitely one of the album’s finest altogether and a strong opener to say the least. The sparklingly addictive ‘Dem No Know That’ is charged with keeping the quality of vibes high on the album as it checks in next. Where the opener had a very interesting pace, Dem No Know That is very straight forward, oh yeah, and it’s BRILLIANT. The tune, in my opinion, is one which speaks of general education and life experience and the effect that the LACK of having such a background can have on not only an individual or a small group of people, but on society in general. It’s a very multifaceted tune and one which I can (and have) spend quite a bit of time on, analyzing and just enjoying. The first of three EXTREMELY high profile combinations rolls in next on what is definitely one of the signature tunes from The Uprising as ‘The Messenjah’, Luciano, joins his good friend Louie Culture on the WICKED uplifting tune ‘Chant Nyabinghi’. This one is just HUGE and ‘threatens’ to overtake the tune which eventually reigns supreme on the album as the two veterans make a BIG pair on the tune. Also included, right in the middle of the album, is the nice riddim of Chant Nyahbinghi (a very interesting touch, as they were on the Hosanna album, but they should be at the end of the piece). Very impressive start with three of the album’s finest offerings.
The other two aforementioned high profile artists to join Louie Culture on The Uprising are (unsurprisingly) his ‘label mate’, Sizzla Kalonji and (more surprisingly) Gregory Isaacs. An expectedly over animated Sizzla appears on the tune ‘If We No Love’ and he does eventually calm himself on the BIG Nyah drum backed riddim to match Culture on the decent tune; while Isaacs appears for a remake of his classic hit ‘Tune In‘. I’ve been saying that Isaacs’ voice hasn’t honestly sounded too well in quite a while and here he isn’t in his finest form either, but the song still retains a touch of its timeless appeal. Still, even with the strong opening bit, a remake of a classic tune and a Sizzla combination to boot, my absolute favourite tune is and hs always been the SCATHING closer, ‘Ten Miles From The City’ which finds Culture delivering a history lesson of EPIC proportions! The song wonderfully speaks of ‘an existing paradise amidst the ruins’ and I could literally spend ALL DAMN DAY analyzing the tune, but instead I’ll just tell you that it’s MAGIC and you need to hear it. GREAT song. Aside from the two tunes which immediately precede Ten Miles From The City, you can stop very comfortably on ANY of the album’s other sixteen tracks and do so confident that you’re about to hear a big tune. Check (BIG TUNE) ‘Love That Land’. The tune is kind of a veiled repatriation anthem and it takes a second to get going, but when it does you have a LARGE tune and one which has me thinking about calling my travel agent RIGHT NOW. And then there’s the donkey song. ‘Donkey Back’ makes a very clever metaphor (which I won’t spoil for you) and builds an entire WICKED tune around it. It also has the very strange twang type of song and it grows on like you a fungus to the point where you’ll very randomly find yourself singing, “too much pressure pon di donkey back”. The tune ‘You Alone Jah’ features an a cappella lead in (as does Ten Miles From The City) which was actually more interesting to my ears before the acoustic riddim backing began and it isn’t bad then either. The tune definitely proves to be one of the better tunes on The Uprising. You’ll recognize a few riddims from the Hosanna album on the album, one of which being the piece backing the tune ‘Jah Is The Way Out’, where Louie Culture arguably makes finer usage of the BIG vibed Nyah drum backed piece than Sizzla did on the BIG Cut & Clear (the Hosanna album also features a clean version of the riddim. The very well done ‘Free Flow Information’ utilizes the same riddim you’ll hear on ‘Sharp Shooter’ from Kalonji who is clearly outdone by Culture. The same DEFINITELY goes for Herbs, Spice & Roots which just barely shines brighter than Sizzla’s offering on the same riddim, ‘Word Power & Sound’. And while Sizzla does enjoy an advantage between his tune ‘Hosanna’ and Louie Culture’s piece on the riddim ‘Spong and Spang Dem‘, in terms of actually comparing the two albums, it may be one of VERY FEW he has. The tune ‘Stagnant’ wastes no time in getting the quality levels of the album back up (with another talking tune intro) and doing so just in time before the two WORST tunes on The Uprising, ‘Here Comes My Lady’ and ‘Stay In Love With Me’ check in to break us down a bit before Ten Miles From The City rebuilds EVERYTHING for the ending.
Overall, of course Hosanna is far more well known, but, again, comparing the two, The Uprising is CLEARLY the better album of the two. And because he only has two albums to date, this one I would HIGHLY recommend to fans of the Sizzla - Capleton era. The tunes here are very well done, a big credit goes to Justice on that end, and they compliment the aforementioned rugged style of Louie Culture very well in that, although there is variety, there isn’t something which requires someone to be RAZOR SHARP (traditionally and categorically speaking. Louie Culture is razor sharp on this album for his own style) and credit goes to Justice again. What I took in full from The Uprising album was a reinforcement of everything I and just a few DEEP Reggae heads knew going in: Louie Culture is talented for EONS. And while most will assuredly continue to sleep on said talent (and he’s still recording), YOU shouldn’t make that mistake; you should track down The Uprising album as soon as possible.
Rated 4.25/5
Reggae Central
2009
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