Stuff: Shall Break Every Chain

Yow!

It's August! The second of the month means that I am twelve days away from entering the final year of my life when I can call my self a twenty-something year old man, which is, of course, most fucked up. I never wanted to get old and 30 definitely qualifies, but unless I find a way to get myself dead in the next year and twelve days (and I'm not planning on it, but shit happens), that's exactly where I'm headed unfortunately (the Mrs. is already there, she turns 30 in four months and fifteen days). So, yeah, that's disgusting, but why dwell on the negative when instead we can put a cap on the wonderful month that was July 2010 and although definitely fret the hell out of this month, still look forward to the big work to be done. What big work? Listen me.

• Reviews: Okay, because they officially delayed Luciano's new album "United States of Africa", I will be reposting it tomorrow. I will take down the old piece and the count won't change because of it, so now you can run out and get it when you see it up yeah. Besides that, later this week I will be dealing with Maikal X's new album "Genesis", already at work on that (got REALLY into a couple of nights ago and just couldn't stop writing for awhile). And in August we'll also hopefully be going back and dealing with a few compilations new and old, so expect "Bobo Revolution Vol. 2", The Repeat Riddim, um Necessary Mayhem's "Digital Acoustics" and a few other pieces maybe. It seems to be a less hectic month in terms of releases than I expected (particularly when that 'new Etana' turned out to be a digital EP and not a full blown album as originally thought (and maybe the same for Duane Stephenson as well). Oh and I might even go back and deal with the DNA Riddim album and some other Dancehall stuffs as well yeah. Oh and Ras Midas MAYBE and Clinton Fearon too, because everyone has been telling me how great it is and I haven't even dug into it yeah (but that first tune, whatever it is, is DAMAGING!). And besides that WHO KNOWS what else these wonderful people who send me music have up under their sleeves (Skinny???) (Methi'S!).
  

• While I may just go ahead and not write for my earthday, three days later is of course an even more special occasion as we celebrate a 123 for The Most Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey and last year I pushed what remains one of my more pleasing and noted posts 'Texting Garvey: The Influence of Marcus Garvey In Modern Reggae', so hopefully I can come up with something just as nice (if I do say so myself), maybe even a sequel of some kind.
  

• I got an email maybe two weeks ago about an album (I'm not going to tell you what it is) that I said I was definitely going to review (and I was), but hadn't gotten to yet, because it turned out to be pretty . . . mediocre. I will review albums I don't like, but I like to have passion about why I don't like it, otherwise it's pointless to write and this one I just . . . I'm disappointed and I don't like it, so I'm not going to write about it. HOWEVER, I'm thinking about starting a new series (yes, another one) regarding albums, from various times, that I just don't like. Perhaps the more controversial, the better, but maybe I'll do such a thing later this month.

• I'm still trying to think of a nice list, still haven't gotten any decent ideas, but I'm still working with that. And of course the usual stuff. I'm probably going to do a Video Drop this week. People have been making quite a few apparently and two weeks on and I'm a little behind. Still have that lyrics feature I mentioned last time to work on and everything else you've come to expect, so hopefully a fun month yeah.

• Oh and I did forget that we might have two interviews. One which I already submitted for response to Camille from United Reggae (biggup yourself Camille, everytime) and a next which I'm mulling over. Not going to tell you about either one of them though, but both are big (even though I find that I just don't like doing interviews after all this time) so there yo go.
  

As far as what's been going on, definitely just a couple of days on, I'm getting the most response from the review for Toussaint's "Black Gold". Got two comments on the actual page (including one which apparently comes directly from Toussaint himself (I like how he said it seems like I listened to every word. Of course I did, we always do) (and Bredz just told me he tweeted about it as well) (and biggup Bredz just sent us our mail last week, nice releases in there). And I've also taken maybe five emails now about it, so just remember it releases digital on August 10 and physically two weeks later and I'll probably be dealing with it again for UR as well.

I also wrote the article 'Without H.I.M.' that got a nice bit of response and actually started a somewhat intense conversation with a reader (who supposedly has a website, yet he won't give me the address) which is nice though (I always go back to Ras Iba's tune, 'Warrior' from the "Matsahyel" album, where he says, "I've got to spread a message that a consciuos mind is our Jah given right - A message to my people that we can disagree without having a fight" YEAH!) and ultimately stuff like that do stand best, perhaps, as discussion pieces and reference aids so they're here yeah.

Did a lot of Soca this month and justly so, so we got some serious feedback from Reggae heads who're kinda/sorta starting to open up to Soca which is, as you know, something that I LOVE! So we'll definitely be keeping up with that in the future, hopefully El-A-Kru drops an album for 2K10 and a few others that we can deal with and if not, it's nothing a vault review for a Destra album wouldn't cure.

See I'm writing this after everything - But I have to say THANK YOU to my new friend Akeunde from Jahlight, Trini label, who told me that Royal Dainties, who I just told you about, recently changed his name officially to Mr. Royal (Mr. Marlon Asher and Mr. Royal). I like the new name, of course he's a bit advanced in his career to do it, but no complaints here and I'm also not going to complain about the fact that Akeunde then gave me a new tune from the newly christened Mr. Royal and it's just part of a pack which I hope to tell you about in a little while yeah.

I think that's it yeah? Biggup everybody. Link me at AchisReggae@Hotmail.com for stuff and definitely for Sunday's big big tunes if you have a thing in mind. And biggup everybody. Biggup Susan from Zojak, going on European tour with Anthony B as Tour Manager for a month and hopefully Bobo gets in the studio for an album when he returns. Also biggup my friend Darryl from Lion Zeal who just got married to awomanwhosenameIforgotbutI'mcheckingnow Steffie. Biggup Jeff, whose link I hope I remember to add and if I was smart I'd do it right now . . . Yep. And everybody else, you know who you are, JC, Dale Cooper, Nico, John B, Asher . . . blah blah blah blah.

I'm leaving before I think of something else. Need a song, had a nice one in mind when I started, but I've since forgotten (been listening to Clinton Fearon from since I started writing this basically and it's NICE) so uhmmmmmmm, let's see what I come up with -
Big big artist, Mazaya with 'Natural Spices'

Pictured, The Lion

Biggup all

Leo