The Vault Reviews: "Spiritual Revolution" by Mikey General

I can’t speak for anyone else, but as an avid collector of the most beautiful sound to be found on Earth, Reggae Music, I find that one of the most enjoyable experiences that I have is going back through some of the more random and obscure points of my collection. I don’t have the memories as well these days, but still I can remember things such as where I bought a particular album or ‘where’ I was in my life at the time and it’s completely nostalgic and lame, but still very fun and not to even mention the actual music itself. In that same vein, I’d say, is the even more fun (and costly) practise of FILLING IN DA GAPS within your collection. Probably for everyone who reads my work with any consistency, there is an incredibly active artist who you either own every album from or are in the process of tracking down every album from. Of course, in my case it’s Sizzla Kalonji (and you can never be REALLY sure if you have them all in his case and I don’t have some of those . . . Charm/Yes Records stuff, proudly), but I know many people who do the same ting in reference to albums from the likes of Luciano, Anthony B and definitely Midnite as of late (good luck to all of you Midnite people). I’ve also gone through same process, throughout the years, myself, with artists like Turbulence, Norris Man (and I think I have EVERYTHING he ever released at this point), Natural Black, Jah Mason and a few others who were/are very active at one point or another and it makes collecting their output so entertainingly difficult and compelling, at least to me, the nerd I am. Now, with that being said, when you go into instances like that, you pretty much know what you’re up against, you have ‘your work cut out for you’. What becomes REALLY interesting, at least to me, is when you’re specifically either looking for or come into contact with something you either NEVER even knew existed or something which you, for some reason, never had an intention on grabbing up, but found to be much better than you thought. Such a situation is rare and it’s even rarer when you can have such a situation and actually be a fan of that particular artist. My greatest example of this would be quite recent as I found myself scouring through digital ‘racks’ before most wonderfully stumbling upon this excellent release from a not too surprisingly surging Mikey General.

You can take these things and muddle them even more if you begin to start talking in terms of form differences. They’re most certainly dwindling these days, but there’re still a few hardcore Reggae fans out there who heavily prefer vinyl to anything else. And on the opposite end of that are people like me who are totally in AWE by the seemingly infinite range of the very elastic digital medium. And it was that digital medium which lead me back to a name which I am always so happy to see being active, Mikey General. Besides the fact that he has appeared on big new riddims (like the Upliftment and of course the Box Guitar) and these very random, but very SOLID compilations as of late, over the last year or so, the General has also had a few just kind of ‘out of the blue’ type of singles released digitally. Songs like ‘Higher Ground’, ‘Need Jah In Your Life’, (especially) ‘Emperor Selassie I Warn Mi’ and ‘Mental Freedom’ are all very nice and come from a variety of different sets, but had you not stuck a nice and colourful picture in my face and attached the General’s name to them, they may’ve not even reached my radars, initially. And it was through this that I started looking back at the albums I did own from the very gifted singer and I noticed one glaring gap that I could rather easily take care of, ”Spiritual Revolution”. The album wasn’t, at all, one which was completely foreign to me, as I most certainly knew that it existed, but I’d never had it. I’d never even heard it as a complete unit or really addressed it anyway. Also, I looked back and noticed that I didn’t really reference it in writing about the General or in similar situations and had I been forced to physically track it down, it may’ve taken a great deal more time than the half minute or so it took for Bredz to get it for us. And we grabbed it up, I had a listen, put it down a minute (thoroughly impressed, but well busy) and now I’m coming back to this most impressive set. What I do know about it is that ”Spiritual Revolution” was originally (at least I think it was) released back in 2000 via Qabalah, the label of General and the legendary Reggae singer, Luciano and it pretty much faded away there, but was re-released by the UK based Redbridge label a few years on. WONDERFULLY, Redbridge has digitized most of their catalogue (nice releases from Phil Elliot and Mark Wonder in there as well), which means we have shots at recovering GEMS like this. The album also seems to kind of exist in the ‘shadow’ of a much more popular and discussed piece which experienced a similar history in terms of creation and being re-released by Redbridge, ”Exalt Jah”, from just a few years later, I believe. That album has never been amongst my favourite releases from Mikey General (even though I’m spinning it now and it sounds pretty good, but it was the second half which I didn’t care for too much), but it ’lives’ in a place which is inherently more visible than ”Spiritual Revolution”. That’s fine, but for people like you and I, there is an album here which I think is CLEARLY one of the best bodies of work from that Mikey General has ever done and regardless of where you sit in that discussion, I think even that even the most harsh and KEEN of critics would admit that it is an album which shows the singer doing what he does best and does in a strong instance. Mikey General will NEVER be the most popular artist, he just will not. But there is a place for consistently providing the masses with UPFUL vibes for decades and decades and as he shows throughout this album, it is a place which he has come to help define.

The singer has done tunes and even full blown albums for a very healthy variety of producers, particularly for Xterminator earlier in his career. This album featured input and production from a variety of different maestros, which while it definitely adds a bit of colour to the album in many respects, surprisingly it doesn’t change the very upful focus of the project and because of that you can hold this album up to many of his other works and it doesn’t stick out to any unusual degree in terms of its sound. The first sound to be heard on Mikey General’s album ”Spiritual Revolution” is also the best sound to be heard on the album from Qabalah and Redbridge, ‘H.I.M. Sons & Daughters’.

“Haile Selassie I sons and daughters
Scattered across the waters
We send you greetings from Jamaica
Haile Selassie I sons and daughters
Scattered across the waters
Remember the Motherland, Ithiopia”

“We’re from the land of the sunburned skin
The people with melanin
Founder of civilizations
Children of Queens and Kings”

The song is one GLORIOUS repatration/Afrikan Diaspora tune and it definitely had the eyes running SERIOUSLY. It is one beautiful song and really the only question is if the first song is the best or the final, a ballad style remix of the first, is. In either case (although I’m sticking with the original), you are absolutely going to love this MAMMOTH piece. The next tune, the Henfield produced ‘Jah Inna Mi Head’, obviously doesn’t outdo the opener, but it just may feature the best lyrics on the album.

“If a man should build a castle and don’t build it in Jah name
Surely, all his doings would only be in vain
If a night man watch the city and Jah presence isn’t there
Know that, in a moment, that city can disappear”

The song, essentially, is a reminder to all to keep His Majesty in your thoughts when you go through things. He may not be at the forefront, ostensibly, but keeping HIM in mind “surely” cannot hurt is the forefront. And lastly of the opening lot is the title track which, with it’s kind of ‘funky’ sound definitely sounds like I know it from somewhere, but I can’t quite say where (and I’m not really too close on it either). In any case, this song is another which is very strong and upful lyrically, but that aside, it is an absolute DELIGHT to just vibe to and one of the most entertaining pieces to be found here, in my opinion.

As I said, despite the number of different producers being more than just one or two, the vibes of ”Spiritual Revolution” don’t too much ‘revolt’ against Mikey General’s tried and true method of making high quality Roots Reggae music, so any type of fan of the genre and/or artist should well be able to catch on at virtually any point of the album. Take, for instance, the BIG ‘Love Is What We Need’, which just so happens to be the only official combination on the album - featuring VETERAN DJ General Pecos (who I actually don’t think is deejaying anymore). This song, very indirectly, kind of continues the sentiment expressed on ‘Jah Inna Mi Head’ and is just a song to satisfy the senses and make the masses feel a nice joy. Of course, you would also look for a Luciano combination, but there isn’t one to be found. However, we do hear ‘The Messenjah’ chime in on the opening of ‘Not For The Natty’. This tune is one which simply outlines the kind of upful, clean and righteous living woman that the General is interested in spending his time with. If you take that tune and combine it with the one which reaches just before it, ‘Wisdom’, you get a pretty good idea of what the UK born singer is looking for. In that tune the General, BRILLIANTLY, attributes feminine qualities to the quality of WISDOM (“her father’s name is Knowledge and her mother’s is Overstanding”), who he is searching for. It’s very nice that these two tunes come in succession on ”Spiritual Revolution” and should I feel the need to ever break this album down even further, I would say that these are two of the more crucial selections in regards to grasping the bigger picture of the album. Also, not too far away is ‘Queen With A Mind’, which is a tune of a similar nature, but if you really grab onto this one it is actually more of a women’s upliftment tune.

“You’re more than just a woman with a pretty face
Jah Jah give you a mind
And it’s a terrible thing to waste”

And you’ll also get one of the single biggest tunes on the album, ‘Know Who You Are’ (across Culture‘s Two Sevens Clash riddim), which is another for elevating and respecting the Afrikan women. And then what amounts to a full on love song in the lovely ‘Shower You With Love’. I can’t resist making the connection here because we just went through five songs speaking on or relation to Women. When you talk about TRULY revolting and having a revolution, what you do is to change the ways that things are going and typically and so unfortunately it is the WOMAN who is oppressed almost from a ‘natural’ way of thinking and apparently, like myself, Mikey General sees this as fucked up! So I’m not at all surprised to see so much of the album appointed to this subject and similar tunes throughout the General’s career as well.

When he isn’t focused on attempting to improve the situations and the conditions surrounded women on ”Spiritual Revolution”, Mikey General is, of course, focused on other aspects of society. Check ‘Red Hot’. This is definitely one of my favourites on the album. It kind of stands as an all encompassing type of social commentary for the masses and in doing so it rides this strand of EXCELLENCE in the process. Very big tune there. And later we get the final stretch of three high quality efforts, ‘Fire Never Cease’, ‘Too Much Revolution’ and the Dean Fraser produced ‘Wash Dem Away’. The final of the three, for me, is the one which leaves the grandest lasting impression. It goes back to an INTENSE level of spirituality, which is the General’s specialty and it works so finely here that should you think this tune the album’s greatest, I wouldn’t put up any fight at all. The other two are particularly strong as well, to my opinion, and although mainly forgotten these days, these are the type of hidden GEMS which make going back to find and spin albums like these SO worth it, because you know that, otherwise, you’d never make that connection to them, all of these years later.

I should also mention the fact that ”Spiritual Revolution” does share six tunes (not too surprisingly, all are Qabalah productions) with another release at approximately the same time, ”Wisdom, Knowledge & Overstanding”, which I believe was the very first combination album between Mikey General and his “spiritual brother“, Luciano. That album is also available digitally now and well worth checking as well.

Overall, not that there was ever any doubt (or at least there shouldn’t have been any) I’m DEFINITELY giving a letter of recommendation for you, yourself, to take a similar journey back in time and check up on ”Spiritual Revolution” from Mikey General. The album isn’t going to cause a revolution of its own (obviously, it’s ten years old), but I think that its power and its significance lies in the fact that, like most of the General’s work, it is just SO well done. They certainly weren’t, but it sure seems like some of these songs were created over years and years of development and this isn’t the first (and it won’t be the last) time that I’ve found myself saying such a thing in reference to Mikey General’s work - It just has this inherently well refined type of feel to it at/near its absolute finest. Now if I could just get someone to bring back the ”I’m Just A Rastaman” album, I’d be even happier.

Rated: 4.25/5
Qabalah/Redbridge
2000/re-rel. 2003
CD & Digital



Mikey General @ Myspace