Track Listing

1. Searching
2. Red Rose
3. Commitment
4. Deportees (Things Change)
5. No Respect
6. If Loving Was A Crime
7. Good Body
8. Wicked Act
9. Tribal War
10. A Little More Time
11. Him Take Off
12. Willy (Don't Be Silly)
13. Gone A Lead
14. Make My Day
15. Operation Ardent
16. Vigilante
17. Deportees (Things Change) (Tan So Back Haul Up Mix)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #166508 in Music
• Released on: 2002-06-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Amazon.com
With the dancehall electro-beats and obsession with violence and homophobia that characterized his earliest releases, the then-teenaged Buju Banton (born Mark Myrie of Salt Lane, Kingston) couldn't escape troubling parallels with some of his early '90s American hip-hop counterparts. But a conversion to the popular Jamaican cult of Rastafarianism--and crucially, this album--seemed to mark a dramatic turning point for both Banton's soul and his music. Indeed, he quickly turned from the gay-bashing "Boom Boom Bye Bye" to promoting AIDS awareness and condoms on this 1993 album's groundbreaking "Willy (Don't Be Silly)." But it takes considerably more than a (shrewdly?) reformed social conscience to make great reggae. Still leaning on the electro-heavy production of early '90s dancehall and relying on a repetitive, growling delivery that doesn't exactly break new ground for either rhythm or rhyme, Banton bullies his way through heart-on-the-sleeve consciousness-raising songs ("Deportees," "Willy," "No Respect," "Wicked Act"), more typical boasts ("Good Body"), and romance ("Red Rose," "Make My Day," "Commitment") alike. Still, listen closely and you'll hear some organic elements (and pop consciousness) seeping through the bluster, harbingers of his breakthrough 1995 album 'Til Shiloh. This remastered reissue features two bonus tracks ("Vigilante" and a dub-heavy remix of "Deportees") originally available as promotional-only singles. --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

Buju Gone A' Farrin'
"Voice of Jamaica" marks Buju Banton's first attempt to crossover to an American/International audience. The slim, gruff-voiced deejay is still cast in the role of the street-savvy rudebwoy on this album. His neatly trimmed fade and clean shaven face stand in sharp contrast to the full beard and flowing dreadlocks that would become emblematic of the deejay in his later career. As with his previous offerings ("Stamina Daddy" and "Mr. Mention") Buju is still on about girls and guns. But what separates "Voice of Jamaica" from Buju's earlier body of work is slick, hip hop infused, Yankee-friendly production and a burgeoning sense of social consciousness.

"Stamina Daddy" was pure, gleeful slackness, a collection of pounding dancehall bangers. "Mr. Mention" contained more of the same, along with a bevy of love songs and the sole conscious tune on the album, "How the World a Run". "Voice of Jamaica", by contrast, begins to showcase Buju's developing maturity with a spate of conscious tunes such as "Deportees (Things Change)" (which blasts Jamaicans who go abroad to find their fortune and abandon their needy relatives back home), "Operation Ardent" (which takes the police force to task for its harrassment of innocent partygoers), "Willy (Don't Be Silly)" (which promotes the value of safe sex), and "Tribal War" and "Wicked Act" (both of which tackle the subjects of bloodshed and violence).

Still, "Voice of Jamaica" has no shortage of love songs and odes to women in general, such as "Searching" (for love - self explanatory), "Commitment" (about a man torn between two women), "Red Rose" (an homage to a beauty with a fondess for ornamental flowers), "Make My Day" (in which Buju promises a young lady, "I'll be your friend to the end like Chucky!" - From "Child's Play"? Yikes! Run, girl! Run!), and my personal favourite "Good Body" (Buju's description of an absolutely gorgeous girl is so convincing on this track that I was willing and to ready to propose to the sister, and I'd never even laid eyes on her!).

Guest stars abound on this disc, including the deliberately cartoonish Busta Rhymes (who taps into his Jamaican roots to chat a little patois on "Wicked Act"), dancehall veterans Tony Rebel and Terry Ganzie (who join Buju in his condemnation of gang violence on "Tribal War"), Brian and Tony Gold (who add their lilting harmonies to "Make My Day" and a couple of other tunes), and, most importantly, the phenomenal Beres Hammond who returns to collaborate with Buju on the instant classic "A Little More Time".

Very few artistes consistently crank out "perfect five" albums in my book, but Buju Banton is one of the most complex and talented deejays ever to grace the microphone in terms of lyrical content, flow, and delivery, and on this album he shines once again. As a music afficionado with an appreciation for both dancehall and hip hop and the combination of the two to various degrees (from KRS-1, to Shinehead, to Born Jamericans) I feel perfectly comfortable giving this solid crossover album five stars. I can, however, understand why hardcore dancehall fans would regard Buju's adventure into uncharted territory with some trepidation, although I hope they would avoid hypocrisy and hold Sean Paul, Beenie Man, Jr. Gong and others to the same standard.