After a one week release Sizzla's new album Ghetto Youth-Ology ranks 4th on Billboard's Top Reggae Albums and Sizzla Invites All To Mama Lou's Thank You Mama Mother's Day Celebration, Sunday May 10th at 42 August Town Road, It's an early thing with special guest artist performing at 9pm. Music will be played by Fresh International and King Tafari. Lots of prizes and giveaways for the mothers like dvd players, fans, irons, microwave etc.
In a recent Vibe Magazine article, Rob Kenner reviews Sizzla's newest album Ghetto Youth-Ology. "Sizzla Kalonji can be maddeningly mercurial. The restless, prodigiously talented songwriter and performer has made more than his fair share of timeless reggae anthems. Blessed with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of melodies and flows, Sizzla has developed and discarded more styles than lesser artists could ever hope for. His influence on a generation of reggae singjays - from Turbulence to Lutan Fyah to Natural Black - is so pervasive that it’s sometimes overlooked. But he’s a consistently inconsistent recording artist.
In the hands of certain producers - Fattis Burrell, Bobby Digital, Don Corleone - Sizzla is reliably a brilliant. But he isn't above taking money from the occasional "fool fool producer" and flipping a few off-hand freestyles to keep the cash flowing through his Judgment Yard recording complex. Some creative missteps are worse than others. Can't blame him for those random rap collabos, or for trying to make "hustler" moves with Dame Dash even though the music was ultimately forgettable. As for covering Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues," perhaps it's better to pretend that never happened and keep it moving. But just when he seems in danger of going artistically astray, Sizzla has a way of returning to his sources of strength and dropping a record that silences the critics and thrills his faithful fans all over again. His latest release, Ghetto Youth-Ology, is one such record.
The album was produced by the Firehouse Crew, the same backing band that played on Sizzla's 1995 debut, Burnin' Up - and on most of his worldwide tours. Anchored by drummer Melbourne Miller and bassist Donald Dennis, the rock-solid rhythm section includes Mitchum Chin on guitars, Paul "Wrong Move" Crossdale on keys, and the inimitable Dean Fraser on sax. Ghetto Youth-Ology avoids monotony by ranging over a variety of musical styles, all of which draw out inspired vocal performances from Sizzla. "Premeditate" thrills with the drama of the "Death In The Arena" riddim while "Running For Your Love" bubbles along on the percolating "Herbman Hustling" riddim. "Stop It Right Now" is one of Sizzla's toughest tunes since his 2002 classic Da Real Ting. "Why are you fighting, my brothers?" he sings in a pained voice. "Why are you fighting, my sisters? Conspiring against one another. Babylon is a trickster." The song's chorus is an urgent, unambiguous rebuke of the gunplay with which Sizzla has occasionally flirted on earlier records: "War, crime, stop it right now…. The SLR, nine, go lock it right now." Whether in Sizzla's war-weary homeland, or in gun-crazy America on the anniversary of the Columbine massacre, this message could not be more urgent or timely.
Less perfectly timed is the Obama tribute "Black Man In the White House," a good song that might have hit harder a few months ago. The album's crown jewel is the timeless "Gwaan Bear" - a folksy ballad in the tradition of Buju Banton's "Untold Stories." Addressing the ghetto youths of his album's title, Sizzla offers words of inspiration over layers of glistening guitar figures, pleading for patience and fortitude in the face of countless obstacles: "Beg the ghetto youths dem gwan bear. 'Cause we see the rocky roads the wicked man prepare - One little shoes used to serve me for a year. From me rise mine, you can rise your career." This is a record to be listened to again and again, if only as a reminder that rare gifts should never be taken for granted.
Posted on May 3, 2009 19:14
CONGRATULATIONS TO DADDA FA WHA HIM ACHIEVE,
MADDDD A ROAD!
:)
Posted on May 5, 2009 08:23
Yea, di tracks i've heard so far are tight...gwaan hol it Dadda