Reggae / Dub
274 products
Congo Natty is one man, a family, a movement. Mikail Tafari aka Rebel MC stands at the core, but as “Jungle Revolution” shows, he’s the lens that brings the whole into focus.
Ten tracks long, “Jungle Revolution” clearly lays out the way in which Tafari sees Jungle as a re-boot of roots reggae for a new century. Full of blood and fire, the sternum-buzz of sub-bass, rapid fire drum breaks, sweet hooks, righteous anger and professions of love, it’s the kind of passionate, committed, raw and spiritual, beautiful record that doesn’t come along that often. “The message of reggae is Ras Tafari and Ras Tafari is love,” he explains. “They sang about love but they was also prophesying and talking about the system, talking about things that were going on in the world. I saw Jungle as being that same music, where we were going to spread a message.”
That message is spread by a diverse cast of collaborators. The album was mixed with On-U legend Adrian Sherwood and Skip McDonald (whose career goes back as far as the Sugarhill Band) plays guitar and, on the deep dub of “Revolution,” melodica. Production smarts are martialled from Benny Page (on the straight up ragga-jungle of “UK Allstars”), Vital Elements (the 150bpm anthem “Jah Warriors” and “Jungle Is I and I”), Serial Killaz (the pure roots bounce and rinse out of “Get Ready”) and Boyson & Crooks (creeping technoid paranoia on “London Dungeons”). Vocalists, meanwhile, run a huge range. There’s a who’s who of UK soundsystem culture on “UK Allstars.” True Congo Natty family like Nanci & Phoebe (check out Phoebe “Iron Dread” Hibbert’s verse on “Microchip” and Nanci Correia’s contributions throughout the record) and La La & The Boo Yaa (“Jungle Souljah”) fill the album with sweet hooks and total commitment. Last, there are artists perhaps best known for their work with others, but drawing new sustenance from Congo Natty’s Rasta beliefs and political views. Lady Chann offers a scintillating contribution on “Jungle Is I and I” and Buggsy, best known for his work with Joker, makes a telling intervention.
That this all holds together into a coherent whole that nods back to the legacy of roots reggae and classic jungle without being in thrall to either is down to the clear-eyed vision of the pioneer behind it. That he could make a record so vital, so alive with love and anger and pure joy, shows that Congo Natty the man is more than just a legend. He’s a revolutionary. And that revolution is happening now.
A rare early album by Creation Rebel back in print for the first time since 1979. Rebel Vibrations was originally issued by the pre-On-U Sound label Hitrun. The rhythms stem from one of the first recording sessions organised by maverick producer Adrian Sherwood, taking advantage of ace Jamaican drummer Lincoln “Style” Scott, sticksman for the Roots Radics, visiting the UK for the first time.
Pairing him up with UK-based players such as Crucial Tony, Lizard Logan, Doctor Pablo and Clifton Morrison, the result is a set of tough and uncompromising dub tunes, or as Sherwood describes it: “a structure of suppressed rhythms and unique possibilities in sonic space.”
A sublime set of roots, vocal and dubbed out instrumental magic, Close Encounters Of The Third World is a real lost gem in the treasure-filled Creation Rebel back catalogue. A true cross-atlantic collaboration - initial rhythm tracks were laid down in London in 1978, with horns and vocals overdubbed at Channel One in Jamaica, before bandleader Crucial Tony returned to London with the tapes for the album to be mixed by a visiting Prince Jammy.
Originally released on pre-On-U Sound label Hitrun, and the second album released by the group chronologically. Unavailable for 45 years, it has been carefully pieced back together, for this new edition featuring extended 12” discomix versions of “Beware” and “Natty Conscience Free”, re-cut by Frank Merritt at The Carvery. Includes new sleevenotes by reggae scholar David Katz that tells the story of the album in full.
Riddim Chango Records is proud to present the first LP release, "KINTSUGI SOUL STEPPERS", a unique sonic patchwork from the Filipino Canadian collective seekersinternational and their fellow beat- maker juwanstockton. This album heralds a cultural fusion, connecting the heritage sounds of
Jamaican dub and the essence of American soul with the nostalgic ambience of 1980s Japan.
"KINTSUGI SOUL STEPPERS” embodies the spirit and art of Kintsugi — celebrating the beauty of piecing diverse fragments together and transforming them into a harmonious new whole.
With seekersinternational and juwanstockton at the helm, the LP celebrates the fusion of different sounds, cultures and identities to create new forms within contemporary music.
African Head Charge return to On-U Sound with their first new album in twelve years. Titled A Trip To Bolgatanga, the recordings are led by founder member Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah, with close friend and co-conspirator Adrian Sherwood once again at the controls. A Trip to Bolgatanga is a stunning return, bringing together the talents of two masters who, after a hiatus, have created a rich album brimming with ideas and executed with finesse.
A Trip To Bolgatanga is a musical journey to Bonjo’s current hometown in north Ghana. A psychedelic travelogue across the landscape featuring their trademark hand percussion and group chanting augmented with rumbling bass, mutated horns, dubbed out effects, wild wah-wah, haunted voodoo dancehall, synthetic swells, disco congas, tumbling layers of electronic effects, blues-inflected woodwind, and funky organ. As with every On-U Sound production, each repeated listen reveals fresh detail, and its power won’t be really understood until heard on a big system, when it’ll reduce all competition to rubble.
Herman Chin Loy wants the world to know the truth about his musical vision, realized in a series of fantastic records released throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s. And how his mission was interrupted in the early 1990s.
“I would like to start off by saying: what about the half that has never been told, who so bold, for the price of gold. The first part is like a Jamaican proverb, but who so bold, for the price of gold, is the part that I put in, because it is all about gold. My mission on this earth is all about the music. But if you want to know the truth, follow the money!”
Herman’s musical trip had a wonderfully sunny start, before ending in acrimony and intrigue. Follow the money indeed… He started by selling records for Leslie Kong, then opened his own One Stop record shop, before moving on to KG’s electrical appliance store in Halfway Tree and deejaying at their discoteque, the Lotus A Go Go.
“It was the age of Aquarius! Whatever was in the air, or what got my attention at the time would find its way into the music, cos I was very creative.”
So Herman turned his keen ears towards record production. The Aquarius and Scorpio labels had a fine run of hit tunes, known for their unusual arrangements and imaginative productions. Many cuts featured Herman himself talking over them. Others were moody instrumentals, for which Herman invented the name Augustus Pablo.
“The name came out of my head. Augustus Pablo – it sounded real not normal! Horace Swaby is the one that I really put the name with, but before that it was Lloyd Charmers, he did some songs for me under that name. Well Horace Swaby came back to me and said can I use the name on my own productions, and I said sure, go ahead. Cos I was not interested in money per se, I was interested in helping others along.”
Kingston in the early 70s was on fire with new music, and Herman put on the afterburners to release Aquarius Dub, probably the world’s first dub LP.
“People always used to come to the store and they want to buy the dub music, but they couldn’t get it easily, so I said let me put all these things together as an LP, and let’s put no label on it so it looks like a dub [plate], and let’s sell it as a dub album. And I was the first one to do that, for sure. I remember when I took the record down to sell it to Randy’s, well they just scoff at it to some degree. Well if people didn’t want to sell my music, then I would just say ‘fuck off with you’, I’ll just sell my music myself, from my own shop and nowhere else.”
Herman then opened the Aquarius Records shop on Constant Spring Road, with a busy bus stop right outside providing a captive audience. Big speakers were placed out in the street, and Herman acted as a vibes man and entertainer, running in and out of the shop and dragging customers inside. As the crowds grew bigger, Aquarius became extremely influential, and the energetic Herman could make or break the latest tunes.
“Well once we get going now, the Aquarius record shop sells more records than anyone in Jamaica. And the people get to know me and come to hang out to see what we play. And soon all musicians start gathering there, like Tommy McCook and the Wailers and everyone, cos Aquarius was the place to be.”
In one infamous incident, Peter Tosh was hanging around outside the shop, when plain-clothes police grabbed the spliff he was smoking and dragged him back to Halfway Tree police station, where he was brutally beaten. Herman and Tommy McCook were the ones who bailed him out.
“Peter Tosh was feisty and got in some trouble sometimes, but then we all did – heheheh. I had always hung around with the bad boys.”
Herman had by now brought his brother Lloyd into the business, and together they opened the Aquarius Studio, fitted out to an extremely high standard by Rosser Electronics, from Swansea in Wales. The studio is probably most remembered today for the recordings made there by Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh. But it was also the seedbed for some interesting offshoots into jazz and soul, with Herman always pushing up against the boundaries of what was conventional. Interestingly, Herman retains a huge affection for Lee “Scratch” Perry, and the mystic experiments that came out of his Black Ark studio.
“Well Scratch was a mad guy, a crazy dude. When we were a youth, the two of us make some records with a bit of screaming and shouting on top. So I come with “here is the news, the great bugga wugga from arugga”, and some other foolishness, just like Scratch, who come with the Chicken Scratch. It was a youthman thing. Then later he came into the shop one day looking like Haile Selassie. And I say “bloodclaat Scratch, you can’t go around looking so”, and he take off him cap and looked inside and pull out some cigarette butt he found in there. And he had a girlfriend name Pauline, and when the two of them fall out, he threw everything out of the studio that had the letter P on it! He was one crazy dude.”
Herman was developing his own unique world view derived partly from a rejection of conventional politics, alongside a distinctive reading of the Bible.
“Musicism is because you have socialism, communism and capitalism, so I thought Musicism would be a good thing to forge people together, to stop them yelling at each other and murdering each other. I thought it would be a good place for everybody to come together. Then I started a little thing down by Trenchtown there, where I was getting people from Rema and from Jungle to get together, but it mashed up in a little while because in the heat of the moment the guns would bark, and for the sake of my life I opted out of that, you know. But Musicism was a thought, so I continued to have an album called Musicism, and you’re talking about people like Linval Thompson, Sugar Minott. I was saying to the people of Jamaica, let’s not vote JLP, let’s not vote PNP, let it be that Musicism is a place where it’s not politics, and where people can talk to each other, so Musicism was birthed out of that.. So we had all sorts of things going on with the Musicism label, and I would put an album with the vocal and then have another album with the dub, because I was into business, I was into making money, but what drives me into the music was the music itself, because I really love the music.”
This reissue is of two extremely rare LPs that came out on Musicism in 1983, a couple of years after dub had declined in popularity as an album form in Jamaica. They were released in the generic 12-inch sleeves of the American label TK Disco, which had recently ceased trading, picked up on Herman’s travels to Miami. The labels were either blank or stamped with the wrong song titles from a similarly obscure vocal compilation. A handful of copies were exported to London and the U.S., and the remainder were sold exclusively by the Aquarius shop.
“In the studio we used to work really fast in them days, especially with Karl Pitterson. Karl Pitterson was one of the most efficient engineers you would ever find, and him and me had a great understanding. So the studio ran real fast. Then there was this guy Steven Stanley who was just a little youngster when he start with me, but he went on to Compass Point and working with Chris Blackwell. He was a little uppity, a bit prideful, although he didn’t even recognise that, but still he was a really good engineer. So we had these people to work for me, and it didn’t take long to do what I did. So it’s strange that we did these things so fast, so many years ago, and they still have a public that wants to hear them today.”
Herman also had an eccentric label called Selection Exclusive which mainly released 12 inch singles with hand-stamped titles on the labels, or sometimes no title at all, wrapped in more of those generic TK Disco sleeves. If this wasn’t enough to throw off even the most serious collector, instead of the expected version on the B-side, there would often be a totally different tune from 10 years earlier, sometimes with Herman whispering smokey rhymes over the top.
“Selection Exclusive was birthed where I was selling this dub album exclusive, but it was expensive. So I don’t think much people knew about these records, but the collectors knew, and these records were selling for hundreds of [Jamaican] dollars more than a normal LP. So this dub album come out and I give it to the sound systems, I give it to Gemini and Merritone, so that they play it all the time. I never give my records to the radio station. And I made so much money out of this album, that it was exclusive expensive!”
Finally, it was a family dispute with Herman’s brother Lloyd that derailed the Aquarius and Musicism train. The outcome was that Lloyd took the studio and Herman kept the record shop.
“I go to court twice and lost all of that money, and my brother won control of the studio. But then they try to write me out of history. And I get so upset when I really think about it. I’m not saying I’ve never done anything wrong in my life. We all need to repent. You see, I have to tell the truth: what about the half that’s never been told! But there was some skulduggery going on then.”
Nowadays there are no record shops on Constant Spring Road. The block which housed Aquarius is now home to Usain Bolt’s Tracks And Records restaurant. Herman joined the steady exodus of Jamaicans to Miami, and today finds him using his verbal dexterity and irrepressible energy to sell Sorrel drinks filled with medicinal herbs, ginger and turmeric. But his music is still out there, circling the globe through speakers and headphones...
“I always want my music to be on a higher plane, like to carry some message. And a dub album gives plenty of space for the message. Just because there are no words, it doesn’t mean that it don’t communicate. If you listen carefully, you will hear it properly, and so the message will reach down through the years, and spread to the people again. This is a spiritual conversation, cos I have reached to a different spiritual plane!”
Diggory Kenrick
