Jungle Revolution

Album review

As jungle/drum'n'bass morphed into the big bassy monster known as dubstep (both the commercial and underground versions), old-school names like Michael West (aka Congo Natty, aka Rebel MC) either evolved in tune with current trends or found their home in the underground, where white-label 12"s meet a rabid fan base and the general public is none the wiser. Now coming aboveground after eight years with his first album since 2005's Born Again, Congo Natty displays that he's grown and yet somehow stayed in place, offering ten cuts of constantly shaking, slowly building, and Rastafari-fueled certifiable jungle music topped with soul-filling chants and political protest. Closing highlight "Microchip (Say No)" rallies against both the Babylon system and big brother with a hard-line stance against our entirely trackable future, while "Jah Warriors" is military music to help jungle soldiers navigate the mean streets, investigating the "thin line between the devil and the riches, the snakes and the snitches, the ho's and the bitches." "Nu Beginingz" acknowledges the present with a wobbly, almost dubstep bassline, but the toasting from Sister Mary is straight from the first ragga rulebook, and the sweet melodica heard on "Revolution" is the breezy sound of Augustus Pablo during the '80s, sitting atop some raggamuffin rap that's got '90s written all over it. Bits of television and movie dialog work themselves in and out of the extremely busy mix, but On-U Sound's Adrian Sherwood is well in charge of the mix, and with Skip McDonald guest starring on guitar, this one is top veteran stuff. Some Congo Natty regulars, including vocalists Nanci Correia and Phoebe "Iron Dread" Hibbert, give the album a proper family feel, and with all these things in place, it's just natural to explain the album's worth with an old-school exclamation like "massive."
© David Jeffries /TiVo