ToyoTomi

Record date : 1976-79

Album style : roots, dub

Playlist :
Ethiopian Version
Leaving Babylon Dub
Dub The Right Way
Salty Dub
Seaview Corner Rocking
Dub Of Righteousness
Great Stone
Empty Vessel Dub
Israelite Children Dub
East Avenue Skank
Tinson Pen Dub
King Tubby’s Key
Jah Is Coming In Dub
Confusing Dub
Top Line Special

Mixing Engineer : King Tubby

Producer : Bertram Brown

Backing Band : The Soul Syndicate
Drums : Max Asher & Santa Davis
Bass : Fully Fullwood
Lead Guitar : Chinna & Tony Chin
Keyboards : Keith Sterling & Gladdy & Richard Johnson
Saxophone : Deadly Headly
Percussions : Skully

Studios :
Recording : Channel One (Kingston, JA) & Randy’s (Kingston, JA)
Mixing : King Tubby’s (Kingston, JA)

It has become a forced issue to have a requisite anthem that caters to ladies, just to be considered as a diverse enterprise. Carefree Californians, TiRon and his ever-reliable consort, Ayomari, are doing the game one better with A Sucker For Pumps, a crisp, melodious glance through a relationship looking glass that was made for women, but strong enough to keep men in tune. Not only do they establish themselves to be unique in their thinking, they piece together an incredible album in the process.

Comparatively speaking, A Sucker for Pumps falls in line with releases such as 808s & Heartbreak and The Love Below with all the honesty of relationship exploits and none of the sap. The pair find no qualms in promoting chivalry on “Her Theme Song” and “Perfect,” just like there’s no fault in waking up “The Neighbors” thanks to the conformity of the missionary position. Avoiding the usual dimensions of “he say, she say,” TiRon & Ayomari exfoliate the surface area and go deep as heard on “No Wonder,” a cut dedicated to self-blame of the male ego, where TiRon admits to “going back to the same ‘ol a-hole role” after surviving a pregnancy scare. [via Smokingsection]

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Travel At Your Own Pace” could be the perfect title for the debut by Y Society, as group members Insight and Damu the Fudgemunk are simply traveling at their own pace throughout the course of this album. They go their own way in terms of beats and lyrics, thus offering something unique and unexpected to the listener, and the result is good hip-hop that challenges the genre’s norms and expectations.

Y Society seems to have a lot of fun creating their music. This can be seen in almost every track of “Travel At Your Own Pace,” in which Insight’s lyrics and Damu’s production work off of each other to create a feel good album. Tracks like This Is Anintroduction, Good Communication, Scientists and Dizzy are just fun to listen to, and provide great platforms for the two artists to display their respective skills on the microphone and turntables. Such tracks show Y Society’s ability to inject hip-hop with a much-needed sense of positive energy and fun.

Other parts of the album allow Insight and Damu to demonstrate their collaborative skills by communicating back and forth with lyrics and cuts. In Command, Setting The Example, and At My Own Pace are skillful songs that create a back and forth effect between emcee and deejay. Insight creates dialogue by speaking with his rhymes, and Damu seems to respond by speaking with his hands in a musical communication technique mastered by very few in hip-hop today.

Common is back with his 9th studio album, The Dreamer, The Believer. The Chi town emcee has been dropping records since ’92 and in that time the landscape of rap has drastically changed.

But on The Dreamer Common takes us back to the basics of classic hip hop; bumping beats and lyrical wizardry.

Production is handled masterfully by long time collaborator No I.D. Whether it’s loops from vintage soul cuts or 90s era boom beats, the Godfather of Chicago rap doesn’t fail to deliver.

Features are few and far between. John Legend pops up on The Believer to drop a gospel hook and Nas lays down a verse on Ghetto Dreams, making the track an instant classic with one of the dopest combinations in hip hop.

But Common has enough to say to not need an album jammed with cameos. On Lovin’ I Lost he spits about lost love with a maturity and experience that young rappers just don’t have, and No I.D. takes it to the next level with a Curtis Mayfield sample.

Common still has the sexy/sensitive side nailed down, particularly on Cloth and Windows.

On The Dreamer he brings a message of positivity that fans of Common’s back catalogue will be familiar with, and sums the whole album up in one line, ‘Maybe I’m a hopeless Hip Hop romantic / Maybe I’m a dreamer.’

Poet and author Maya Angelou recites an original poem at the end of the song, reliving Lonnie’s conscious rap days.