Capleton - Still Blazin [VP Records, 2002]
While the Reggae shelves worldwide have been unfortunately lacking in any new (legitimate) release the ‘Fireman’, The ‘Prophet’, ‘King Shango’, Capleton, in a disturbingly long while, things weren’t always the case. He was once quite active and in being so, arguably delivered three of the most outstanding albums in the whole of Reggae music history. While the first of those three More Fire [2000] has gone onto become Reggae iconic History and the album’s title has probably become the single greatest statement of the power of the artist, the second of the three isn’t as popular, but amongst all so fortunate to have dealt with it (and who REALLY listened to the point where it exists as something other than “the one after More Fire”) Still Blazin was a ROYAL sounding album. Soaking in controversy, of course, but getting past that, in terms of PURE SKILL, it may be on par with its EPIC elder sibling. The album featured this BIG and BOOMING vibed type of music from Capleton and for me, signaled yet another phase of his celebrated career. Let’s examine! Still Blazin.
The Music
1. Search Fi A Find
So do I deal with the fact that the very beginning of this tune , completely different from the balance of it, is absolutely brilliant in its own fifty-six second or so??? Even with that (EPIC) bit notwithstanding, ‘Search Fi A Find’ is a tune about the corrupt world trying as hard as they possibly can to find a way to keep their system intact, meanwhile the writing on the wall is clear that the time of their fall is nigh. The riddim on the thing was also spectacular, courtesy of David House’s own GT Adams.
Best Lyric: The ‘intro’. All day!
2. Behold featuring Morgan Heritage
This sprawlingly beautiful tune from Bulpuss gets started three of eventually three very high profile Reggae combinations (better respect Glen Washington at this point!) and it does so in FINE fashion. ’Behold’ links Capleton with the Morgan Heritage and, to my ears it stands as ‘merely’ a MASSIVE statement to the power of His Majesty. The way the song rolls through, you definitely have to appreciate some of the more tangible connections made between HIM and everyday life, represented in the everyday LIFE of Rastafari, still it is the more spiritual connections made on the tune (particularly when Gramps takes over later on the tune), which REALLY set this one apart (DAYS I could spend on this one).
Best Lyric: Capleton - “Prophet, Priest & King. Emperor Selassie ah di King of ALL Kings. So you betta know yourself and ah di judgment coming. Mi chant earthquake and thunder and lightening. Dem caan take di fyah weh mi fling. Yow! Dem caan hold di vibes weh mi bring. Yow! Just listen to di song weh mi a sing. Jah give man domain over all living things!”
3. Mashing Up The Earth
Let it be the very definition of that big and beautiful anthem like sound on Still Blazin, ‘Mashing Up The Earth’ was MASSIVE! The tune dealt with the overall, physical, mental, spiritual and whateverelsical degradation taking place in the world by the powers that be and it also offered a way out (through His Imperial Majesty of course) of that flawed behaviour. This one is still well regarded and well remembered here as being one of the best and JUSTLY SO!
Best Lyric: “Mashing up the world out there. With them atomic energy and them nuclear”
4. I Will Survive
This ANGRY tune is another one which has withstood the test of time on the album and still receives quite a nice reaction. Is it because African Star FLATTENED the place with that devastating riddim? Is it because Capleton himself weaved a lyrical message which spoke to so many on so many levels and in so many situations about maintaining oneself and one’s dignity? Yeah, it’s because of all of those things. Oh! And the tune itself is absolutely ridiculous!
Best Lyric: “Well some a say them blessed, but dem cursed. Nuff a dem no really know what life is worth. Every ghetto youth waan fat up Mama purse. Hail King Selassie I the first”
5. Whoa “New Way”
The intensity is turned WAY up momentarily on Still Blazin courtesy of Snow Cone’s BIG Rice & Peas Riddim, which Capleton uses for this insanely hype attention grabber, ‘Whoa’. The tune, lyrically, perhaps isn’t so extreme in terms of what is said (with the exception of a HEAVY second verse), but in terms of how it’s arranged and paced and the melody, the tune is something extraterrestrial-ish. The tune has also remained one of Capleton’s favourite from the album and the next time you see him perform, chances are that you’ll hear it done finely in some form or another despite the controversies. Lucky you.
Best Lyric: “Well if you diss Selassie I you get ten outta dis. Diss Emmanuel you get seven outta dis. Diss Marcus Garvey you get five outta dis. If you diss Queen Omega then mi empty the clip!”
6. Punchline 2 Hit
An incredibly energized and familiar version of the Answer Riddim backs this lyrical gem of a tune, which hasn’t necessarily gotten its fair share of credit in my opinion. I had the pleasure of seeing the Prophet perform this tune once, relatively close to the release of the album, which has certainly helped to endear to me over the years. The BRILLIANT old school Dancehall DJ style is just a wonder to watch and the tune flows in such a direction where EVERY SINGLE LINE is on point and is a testament to the strength of His Majesty and it’s like they (like HE) never end. It just keeps on going over and over to the point where, by its end, ‘Punchline 2 Hit’ only goes over its chorus a single time.
Best Lyric: THE ENTIRE FUCKING TUNE!
7. Caan Tan Yah
Sugar Roy (who is apparently no fan of mine) was the mastermind behind the BRILLIANTLY relicked African Beat Riddim on this set which is POUNDED wonderfully by Capleton on ‘Caan Tan Yuh’. This one had quite a few things going for it in terms of making it SPECIAL (and it was), not the least of which was the fact that it bordered on lyrical perfection at more than one point and as a whole, taken in it is easily one of the most memorable statements on the entire album.
Best Lyric: “Say dem caan tun. If you think I lie go ask Buju Banton. If you think I lie go ask Burro Banton. If you think I lie go ask Mega Banton. If you think I lie go ask Billy Banton. Gwan go ask Smiley and go ask Michigan. If you think I lie gwan go ask Flourgon. Who bun di fyah? Gwan go ask Red Dragon”
8. Hail King Selassie featuring Luciano
THE anthem. It’s a single tune featuring Capleton and Luciano. . . I probably shouldn’t have to say anymore, but even if I did, what I would put on top of that is that the tune is produced by the legendary Black Scorpio and it is absolutely sensational in every way and probably the biggest single moment offered on Still Blazin(I actually ‘still’ kind of consider it the title track to a degree). The tune strikes into the notion that despite how hard life can be, it is important that those of us still here continue to strive to make changes, both large and small. And of course those changes are taken through the course of His Majesty, because in doing so, the victory si assured.
Best Lyric: Luciano - “If they would listen to The Emperor, then this world would be better. But because they deny the comforter, then this whole world is burning in fyah!”
9. Cooyah Cooyah
Madness! If you ever you lose sight of EXACTLY why Capleton is known for burning so much figurative fire, there exist ‘Cooyah Cooyah’. The tune goes way above and beyond the stereotypical, clichéd and downright LAME method that many had gotten into describing this controversial theme at the time as Capleton set about casting a big ass BLANKET of fire over anything which even remotely impure (and Calibud‘s young son apparently agreed).
Best Lyric: You already know what it is.
10. Pure Woman
On the surface, I could imagine that a tune such as ‘Pure Woman’ could bring about words like ‘misogyny’ and ‘sexist’ and things like that, but if you dig a little deeper you actually find that it is far from that and is, in fact, actually closer to the exact opposite. Listen VERY closely and what Capleton actually does is to paint a picture of a world with the Woman, as opposed to a world without her which is rendered COMPLETELY unsupportive of human life, in every way, shape and form.
Best Lyric: “So much womannnnnnnn in the world. Still some bwoy no waan go love no girrrrrrrrrrrrrllllllll”
11. Boom Sound
This multi-tiered musical praising tune wasn’t one that found a very large audience when it reached and to be perfectly honest, I can’t blame them. Compared to some of the more LARGE (in terms of popularity) and respected works on Still Blazin, the tune doesn’t stand out to those proportions. HOWEVER, in terms of pure lyrical skill and delivery, ‘Boom Sound’ is arguably as powerful as anything you’ll hear on these nineteen tracks as Capleton DEVASTATES the flow, in a Dancehall style on this powerful forecast of the future of Reggae music - the Boom Sound.
Best Lyric: “Lift dem meditation above captivity. Grow and elevate dem mental capacity. Make sure Black Woman always have clarity. Diss Selassie I, you ahgo lose yuh sanity. Diss Marcus Garvey, you nah go see the prophecy. Diss Emmanuel then how the fuck you gain the livity? Diss King Selassie I you caan get no gravity”
12. How It Ago
This electrically GRIMY tune (over the very strange Renegade Riddim), like the one which precedes it, didn’t grab a HUGE level of attention of fans and still hasn’t, but just as in the previous case. That means next to nothing to the listener who took the time to listen to it deeply. ‘How It Ago’ is a SCATHING critique of people who aren’t living too well and seem to be doing so purposefully. Capleton shows no mercy AT ALL on a tune which, beneath the surface (just a little beneath it), may just be one of the most condemnatory of the wicked of his entire fire burning career! EPIC!
Best Lyric: “How it ago go. Ah How it ago go. Cuz if dem diss mi and mi buk dem up a how it ago go. A how it ago go. A how it ago go. Caw when mi buk dem, mi ahgo bun dem it up ah so it ago go!”
13. Guerilla Warfare
‘Guerilla Warfare’ was the last in a string of five tunes which launched this impromptu devastating hardcore Roots Dancehall stretch of tune and it ends the matter on a VERY high note. This one is less focused in a sense that it does deal with a particular type of approach or lyrical direction, instead Capleton takes it in several directions in declaring himself ready for war. What “war” is exactly, who cares? The man is ready.
Best Lyric: Second Verse
14. Red, Red, Red
Back to the reign of one drop ‘Red, Red, Red’ is another tune which didn’t reach to the heights of popularity on the album, but is just a straight forward GEM of a tune. Capleton seems to be describing what he sees as a general decline of the times on the tune. Of course he references the bombing and goes through other things which he sees as derogatory to life, but the way it is just put together is the real attraction here on this big social commentary. Never mention that sweet ass Bulpuss riddim playing beneath it.
Best Lyric: “Yow dem ah wonder ah Gaddafi step inna dem face. Dem ah wonder if a Castro step inna dem face. Dem ah wonder if a Arafat step inna dem face. Mi hear di whole a dem alla debate”
15. In Your Eyes
SPECTACULAR! If you didn’t know that ‘In Your Eyes’ would be a special piece from the way it began, then you need to find another blog to read and another type of music to listen to because this one had ‘winner’ writing all over it and it was the tune itself which did the engraving. The kind of ‘enchanting funk’ which this tune produces is wholly unforgettable and even if it doesn’t go much further than building on that same sound, you don’t hear downright ODD brilliance like this often - if ever at all.
Best Lyric: “I see it in your eyes. I see it in your smile. You’re my angel in disguise”
16. Mi Deh Yah
Crafted wonderfully across Finga Stewart’s (Tinga’s son) woefully underrated Praise Him Riddim, the BEAUTIFUL ‘Mi Deh Yah’ just hit inspirational levels perhaps not reached on the album altogether and if so, VERY rarely. This one kept careful watch over the youths, strengthening their foundation and just hoping to steer them into the proper direction and it DEFINITELY achieved that and then some.
Best Lyric: “So mi tell di wicked man dem mi no want dem around. Well dem coulda Black, dem coulda purple or brown. Dem diss Emmanuel and get a judgment sound. Mi no want dem pon mi compound!”
17. Jah Is Gonna Work It Out featuring Glen Washington
For me, and maybe only me, ‘Jah Is Gonna Work It Out’ is simply CLASSIC material at this point. This tune has just been so mighty and DEPENDABLE for me over the years - having helped me work through a few personal things and, like I said, if I’m the only one in the world who can say that, I don’t give a damn! The pairing here between big time veteran artists, Capleton and Glen Washington, was a stroke of genius (seemingly executed by producer Anthony Malvo) and the two match talents here on a level which is EASILY on the level of that of the more well known combinations on the album. The tune deals with many subjects, ultimately casting them all to the will of His Majesty and it simply couldn’t be more powerful. HUGE tune.
Best Lyric: Glen Washington “Now I am doing the works of my Father. Kill bad minded and then we can prosper. They will meet up with certain disaster. Jah will move them with lightening and thunder!”
18. I & I Chant
Tears! Eight years later and this one still plays tear-jerker on my nerves and I’m not complaining none at all. The song was just so powerful, so beautiful and damn near breathtaking at this point that it got me! Still does. That ULTRA straight forward CHANT on the tune is unfortunately one which Capleton hasn’t used much (not AT ALL since I believe), but whenever the discussion turns to such a style, draw for this tune on his end. ‘I & I Chant’ was gorgeous! “DOWN THE WALLS OF. . . CHANT!”
Best Lyric: “BABYLON IS SEARCHING FOR A FIND TO DEFILE MANKIND. RASTAFARI SAY HIM AHGO SHOW DEM A SIGN THIS TIME. HOW CAN YOU BURY ONE MAN THREE TIME? BABYLON YOU BLIND BLIND!”
19. Hidden Track
What the hell is a hidden track? Okay, that being aside, how happy were you when you figured out that this track was here? It wasn’t on the back of the disc and not ALL of the tracklists available online listed it (and some of them still don’t. This was just a VERY welcome surprise. Okay, what it actually was if you haven’t heard it (then shame on you), was a tune called ‘Gimmi Di Woman’ across the old Spanish Harlem Riddim. It was a kind of a playful and just downright NICE praising tune for the Afrikan Woman and this time, there was no question, no controversy. Just divinity. Why hide it! They should be singing it in the streets!
Best Lyric: “Well a dem give mi mi happiness and dem give mi mi joy. Bring forth mi son and dem bring forth mi boy. So mi couldn’t take the woman turn inna no toy. She neva make mi son go tun rude boy Leroy. She neva make me son go tun a real old McCoy. She make him tun a ransom cowboy. Say jump up fi happy, mi say jump up fi joy. Black Woman ah di Mother of Earth!”
Synopsis
Despite the fact that the title here, ‘Still Blazin’, is fairly useless in obtaining the prevailing message of the album, I don’t think you can totally discard the concept ‘fire’ in the music if you do want to find that meaning. Taken in the OBVIOUS connotation in which it was meant, figuratively speaking (I’m still troubled by the notion, all these years later, that ANYONE could have taken these things literal), the ‘fire’ conceptually is used as a cleansing device for things which are not only unrighteous, but things which DIRECTLY oppose those thins which are. Of course, “those things” are ultimately going to differ from person to person and I feel that on Still Blazin, Capleton went about basically outlining the what “those things” were to him. Also, you should probably take into account what was going on at the time as, being released in February 2002, the world was still less than six months removed from the September 11 bombings and it is something which is CLEARLY reflected on the content of the album (think about how many times you hear the word ‘pentagon’ said here (which is still far less quizzical and downright ominous than Sizzla using a similar approach on the MASSIVE tune ‘No Time To Gaze’, four-five years earlier), I digress). Still Blazin, to my opinion, takes a next logical step in terms of progression from the More Fire project (which largely IDENTIFIED the fire) and places the inferno concept into actual use.
Of course the greatest display of said use occurs on ‘Cooyah Cooyah’, a tune which features an entire verse of some of the most flaming wordplay ever heard. Still, while the attention on that tune may (and does) tend to focus mostly on Capleton burning down every thing from Queen Elizabeth to Pollution and Corruption, what I find more interesting is the section just before where suddenly the “fire” has gone from being this wickedly evil and torturous device, to serving an almost COMMUNAL function:
“Gwan fyah children, yuh fi come ah di fyah camp
Come ah di fyah school fi fyah education
Mi teach it Fyah Woman and mi teach it Fyah Man
Give dem foot. Give dem di fyah hand
Well peer fyah food weh mi gi dem fi nyam
And ah mi gi dem di fyah meditation
Go bun babylon. . .”
In your mind you can certainly picture some militaristic type of training facility with Capleton running it, but the very curious (and revealing in my opinion) line, “Well peer fyah food we mi gi dem fi nyam”, changes and flat out destroys this type of an ultra-violent system ESPECIALLY when you relate it back three lines to, “Come ah di fyah school fi fyah education”. You could very well make the argument that these two lines are saying the exact same thing with “Food” being (as it often is) another word for ‘education’ or ‘knowledge’ (I.e. ‘brain food‘ not meaning literally the caloric intake of your mind) and certainly there is a very wholesome presupposition which goes along with “food”, being healthy and nourishing and definitely not negative and so ‘useful‘ that it is something which Capleton seems anxious to teach to his people.
Another very nice bit of usage occurs when you look at the very VAST tune which is ‘Behold’. This tune is, essentially, a praising tune for The King, but it unfolds in such an interestingly fiery way and not just on the side you’d imagine because as it also features the Morgans, they too get involved on the spiritual pyrotechnics:
“Rasta have the fire that will burn you out
All must be purified to enter Jah Kingdom
Increase your knowledge and you’ll gain wisdom
Fools can’t serve Jah so we burn dem out”
NOW! That’s very interesting and I think it’s best ‘digested’ by applying a bit of common sense (and isn’t everything???) to the matter. First of all, if the two first lines are related AT ALL (and they are), then we can safely assume (in my opinion), that the first line’s mention of “Rasta have the fire that will burn you out”, isn’t exactly a negative because apparently submitting to said “burning out” has something to do with the purification that will gain you entrance into Zion. And with lines three and four, having already established that “burning out” isn’t exactly the worst thing in the world and can be construed as being quite helpful to an individual, we can either substitute the “burn dem out” segment of line four with ‘keep dem out’ or just ‘cleanse’ or ‘purify’ so they too can ultimately enter “Jah Kingdom”. If you still want to hold onto it as a negative thing, you would then be saying that the figuratively (or even literally) negative flames are cast upon those simply for being uneducated, which can include EVERYONE, young, old and animals and plants.
The final applicable point regarding the fire that I’d like to quickly make is to look at the love/Woman uplifting tunes on the album and just the family tunes in general. Tunes like ‘Pure Woman’, the hidden track and ‘Mi Deh Yah’, definitely give Still Blazin an air of one of the most tangible aspects of life and make the concept of fire even more applicable and relatable.
We could certainly sit here and analyze and deliberate the concept of this still blazing eternal fire and probably have fun doing it. HOWEVER, what is clearly not in question is this album - One of the greatest of Capleton’s entire career, perhaps one of the most significant from anyone since the turn of the century and A BONAFIDE MODERN REGGAE CLASSIC!
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