Zzzzzzzzzzz: A Review of Pon Di Gaza by Vybz Kartel

The list of artists of whom I have been very critical, at least in my opinion, is very short and I always like to think that I have good reason for it. Almost always the situation which is most likely to draw my ire is simply making BAD music or, even more likely, an artist who has proven him/her self capable of doing much better, making BAD music. The ‘perfect’ case and point (watch this now) would be Perfect, the somewhat radical chanter from out of ST. ANN’Z (!). It is my opinion that, up until very recently, Perfect’s material was very substandard and, unlike many of his peers, there’s not much of a middle ground with Perfect’s music, his style, itself, almost prevents him from being AVERAGE, thus, when he’s not good, he’s generally BAD and that. Perfect’s (in my opinion) bad streak bottomed when released his most recent work Karma, however, as I said, his troubles seem to be in the past these days and the few pieces I’ve heard post Karma have been more of the obviously and unusually talented chanter in a finer form. I’ve been even more liberal with throwing around critiques for Turbulence who was once one of my favourite artists in the game and one who is just so talented, considering his ability to chant, DJ or sing (and do so in a VERY powerful voice) that I felt (and still do) it was a real shame that the now nearly thirty year old artist spent his time in the studio singing INCREDIBLY mediocre love ballads and not doing the BEAUTIFUL Roots music through which he earned his stripes (and even better love songs back then also). There have definitely been others on similar situations and scales, such as Norris Man and even Sean Paul to a lesser degree of whom I’ve had to think once or twice that, “something simply isn’t right here”. That being said, however, by far one of my STRANGEST ‘targets’ of critique over the past year or so has been Vybz Kartel. This is true despite the fact that over the relatively same period of time, Kartel has enjoyed some of his biggest commercial success (especially locally) in his entire career, as with a seemingly endless supply of chart toppers being dropped, he has almost unarguably propelled himself to Jamaica’s number one Dancehall artist at this point. Yet, while I’ve been sure to give due credit to the DJ when he’s done well (as he DEFINITELY did with his most recent album, the MASSIVE The Teacher’s Back, which was easily one of the best hardcore Dancehall album that I’ve heard in quite awhile), to my ears there has been a noticeable shift in his music, which hasn’t exactly met my tastes so well.

So what’s been this “shift”? Well, awhile back the hanging question was always whether or not (and, by extension, HOW) Vybz Kartel could evolve his music. How can you go from a lyrical master of the ‘Three G’s’ of Dancehall subjectry (Girls, Guns & Ganja) as Kartel was, to being an artist who places his proverbial hat into several different things musically speaking. And what Kartel evidently came up with was this very mechanically vibed style which, at least to my ears, made less usage of his main talent (which is, of course, his lyrical ability) and I would even go as far as to say that he did it largely because of the backlash he received from countless upon countless people telling the artist just how much power he had and just how much positivity he could spread. The style he adopted offered only occasional glimpses into the UNDENIABLE BRILLIANCE he once exhibited and more closely resembled the rather ghoulish slow style of vibes you’d hear from Bugle. The difference being that the style is exactly what Bugle is and, unfortunately, it’s what Kartel has become. Apparently I wasn’t in the majority with my thinking because, as I mentioned, Kartel’s popularity hasn’t suffered at all and his ‘empire’ continues to grow for the most part and he’s now attempting to add a jewel to his crown as Vybz Kartel releases his fifth studio album (by my count), Pon Di Gaza and he does so under the most unusual set of circumstances. The album, Pon Di Gaza is apparently (at least initially) only offered to the world digitally, which isn’t very rare these days, but it’s also being pushed by his own Adidjaheim label (in conjunction with the label of his new favourite producer Notnice) and Kartel is an artist who most likely would need only to say ‘Yes’ in order to have a deal with the industry’s leader, VP Records. But, always the trendsetter, Kartel is doing his own thing, as usual and the result is what IMMEDIATELY became one of the year’s most anticipated Reggae/Dancehall albums the SECOND it was announced. However, musically speaking, Pon Di Gaza is a (very) poor man’s version of The Teacher’s Back album as, although it similarly vibed to a degree, it’s literally light years away from that downright destructive piece. I had such a bad feeling about this one going in because, listening through the initial sound clips, the first thought I had in my mind was “BORING”, and as polarizing as Vybz Kartel and his music can be that’s simply a word you should associate with him AT ALL (even if you hate the tunes, it shouldn’t be BORING) and having spun through it extensively by this point, my first thought in reflection is that. . . Well it is boring and it’s kind of flawed also. Vybz Kartel is one of a very select group of artists that we have today who, by virtue of simply being himself, creates a vibes to his music which is his and his alone and, even if you may have not liked them all (and I pretty much did, for the most part) what you’d have to say about his previous albums (Timeless, Up 2 Di Time, JMT and The Teacher’s Back) is that NO ONE in Dancehall could have made those same vibes sound anywhere near as good as he did. Not that he’s just this insane talent (and he is), but that Kartel’s music, like I said, is so categorized by the elements of his own style which is his and his alone at this point. Pon Di Gaza? I could probably name you more than a couple of artists who could have not only made this album but made it BETTER than Vybz Kartel at this point unfortunately.

Two things you should know about Pon Di Gaza before you decide to pick it up, even if you fancy yourself the hardest of the hardcore ‘Gaza fi life’ screaming Kartel fans: The first is that it’s entirely too long (although shorter than The Teacher’s Back) and that should be obvious. Besides being at least seven tracks too long, Pon Di Gaza is also (more importantly) EDITED, so beware. ‘Yeah Though I Walk’ is the first tune you need to beware of, but not too much as the ‘duty free’ song is probably the best tune on the entire album altogether. The story behind Pon Di Gaza is that a down Kartel penned the lion’s share of it last year and, again, that isn’t his style with the HEAVY and almost depressed type of vibes, but Yeah Though I Walk is strong stuff and I could pluck it off and it would fit rather comfortably on the TTB album definitely. Too bad things don’t stay this good! They don’t get bad actually (well, not ALL bad) and certainly not on the next tune, ‘Ghetto Youth’ [aka ‘Haffi Mek It One Day‘]. This tune is one which threatens to prove me wrong as, although it is just a touch mechanical, it’s still a very nice and poignant song. Yes, Kartel can do this type of song (he CAN do any type), but it generally proves to be hit or miss in terms of quality, luckily Ghetto Youth has quality written all over it and it was thusly well received by the masses also. ‘Bail For Me’ concludes matters at the head of Pon Di Gaza and, again, it’s not bad at all. The song, at times, almost seems like it’s about to fall apart and it, by no means, is one of my favourites, but it’s doable and Not Nice’s SCATHING riddim of the same name is downright spectacular and not to be missed. All in all, Pon Di Gaza’s is an opening which packs some of the biggest vibes of the albums in one small section and, tellingly, even IT could have been better.

Now to the madness. Two of the most (including THE most) high profile tunes on Pon Di Gaza have been disgustingly mutilated. The first is former MASSIVE hit ‘Romping Shop’ alongside Spice. The tune was a huge hit for the pair and was pretty x rated. However, you listen to this THING on Pon Di Gaza and not only is it with the remixed (I.e. legal) clunking riddim, it’s HORRIBLY edited. Some of the words cut out and replaced by noises include ‘breast’, ‘nipple’ and ‘ride it’. At least it got to keep its name though. Why they chose ‘Versatility’ instead of the original tune ‘Virginity’ is an absolute mystery to me. The original was a hit, because of the change; however, the remix makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE linguistically. And while those two tunes suffer from the censor’s axe, several other tunes on Pon Di Gaza suffer from the far more sinister BAD or WEIRD. The latter rears his ugly face on the forced ‘Broken Cry’ which features a moving sample from one of Martin Luther King’s speeches (it also features Kartel Portmore Empire protégé Blak Ryno) The song goes absolutely NO WHERE. It would have, in my opinion, stood better as an interlude with just the speech alone as the actual tune takes REALLY takes away from it. ‘Can’t Frame Me’ seems to try and follow in the footsteps of the opener, but it doesn’t have similar lyrical success and although it definitely isn’t a BAD song, it never really catches on and is ultimately forgettable. ‘For Love’ is just BAD. The song takes its hook from, of all places, Bobby Caldwell’s 1970 something hit What You Won’t Do For Love (which is a good song!) and flushes it right down the toilet. Kartel changes things up (not really) on the pedestrian Love of Money across the decent Slaughter House Riddim and it has some solid wordplay (duh), but nothing really that strikes of the DJ at his best. This is child’s play for Kartel. The wine up - wine up tune has never really been his forte and ‘Whine Up You Body’ on Pon Di Gaza isn’t terrible, but Kartel can definitely do better (see ‘Beyonce Wine‘). ‘Get Wild’ isn’t very good, but STILL it happens to be one of the better tunes on Pon Di Gaza. You’ll hear and you’ve heard several tunes like this one from Kartel in the past and this one doesn’t feature anywhere near the level of lyrics as some of the others, but it’s decent enough for the circumstances. Jump ahead to the Chimney Records vibed Movie Star riddim which backs the tune ‘Like A Movie‘, which is similar to Get Wild in the sense that it’s also one of the better tunes here, but ultimately nothing special AT ALL. ‘You A My Baby’? Another decent number, but the evil censor rears is back taking the adult goodness from the tune which used to be quite popular. See now you take that and fill in the gaps between the mentioned tunes with those which I didn’t bring up, ‘Love At First Sight‘, ‘The World Turns’ and ‘Gaza Love’ and you take a decent stretch and basically ruin it. Of those three, The World Turns [aka Move Ya Body] DEFINITELY gets off to such a nice start before descending into something which sounds like Kartel is making it up as he goes along pretty much after the very first verse (however, the riddim on that one is RIDICULOUS. Another one from Tarik ‘Russian’ Johnston, who also helms Virginity/Versatility). Three tunes down the stretch of Pon Di Gaza actually get my attention and do so in a good way. The first is ‘Life We Living’ which is a very SOLID social commentary and rather easily climbs to the heights of tunes on the album. There’s also the very strange sounding ‘Struggle’ which, initially, sounds like the theme song from some TV show from the 1980’s. The song is a similar one to Life We Living and at first I didn’t like it too much, but it definitely grew on me after about five spins or so. You may not favour it very much (or you may LOVE it) and if you don’t, at least give it a few spins before giving up on the song completely. ‘Tear Drops’ another similar one actually started much higher with me, in terms of my appreciation of it compared to Struggle (I now rate Struggle higher), it didn’t have much ‘growing’ to do at all and it’s still a pretty decent song, although at this point I’m dying for that finish line. Said line comes in the form of Want My Weed which, unfortunately, just like the other tune from the last bit Vybz Kartel’s Pon Di Gaza which I didn’t mention, ‘Video Recorder’, is damn near terrible from all ostensible levels. It’s not a great ending, not anywhere near it, but at least it’s OVER!

Overall, I’m pretty sure this album is going to do well and I’m pretty sure the fans are going to enjoy it for the most part. And I would even go on to predict (as I have in the past) that with this newfound digital linking from Kartel and his crew, we could very well see a rather steady stream of albums coming out of the Portmore Empire and not all of them from Vybz Kartel either. As for me, however, I just don’t like it. The ‘version’ of the artist I liked was the one who was full of CONFIDENCE and knew that he was the baddest lyricist in the Dancehall. Maybe this version still knows it, but the downright depressed and boring vibes I heard on Pon Di Gaza just doesn’t seem like he does. For the hardcore Kartel faithful, again, I’ll remind you that this one is edited so if you see your favourite tune here, you might want to listen it first. And to the newer fans, either pay the arm and a leg for The Teacher’s Back or pick up JMT. Pon Di Gaza while definitely the biggest album in the Dancehall right now in terms of star power, just doesn't pan out, at least not to my ears and he can do SO MUCH better. Maybe I’m just a ‘hater’, but if I am, material such as what is to be found on Pon Di Gaza doesn’t make my job very hard at all.

Rated 2/5

Adidjaheim/Notnice

2009