OMM so very very wrong about Sean Paul

stelfox

Beast of Burden
Sean Paul, The Trinity

One-dimensional return from the former collaboration king

Steve Yates
Sunday September 18, 2005


Sean Paul's second album, Dutty Rock, solidified the bond between dancehall and hip hop, yielding numerous star cameos and earning the deejay the soubriquet 'collabo king'. Surprising, then, that his follow-up retreats into Jamaica, using a fusillade of local producers and vocalists, but in return exposing Paul's seriously one-dimensional oeuvre. Almost all of The Trinity's 19 tracks concern sex or, very occasionally, love, with only the hymn to departed friends, 'Seasons', suggesting Paul writes with anything but his dick. Though 'Ever Blazin" should prove irresistible, The Trinity hovers uncomfortably between all-out pop and hardcore ragga camps and is unlikely to satisfy either crowd.

link here

Im sorry but this is one of the most lame-ass reviews I have seen in a long time. Anyone who knows the first thing about dancehall and reggae can tell you that this record is actually pretty damned good.
As for "retreating to Jamaica", how can this be a bad thing? Reggae speaking independently, in its own voice, without the filter of US pop - the effrontery!
This whole wrongheaded critique roughly translates to me as: "This music may be good for adding the occasional exotic flourish to records by Beyonce and Gwen Stefani, but other than that, it's worth nothing. The damned impudence of these people trying to make globally successful music that appeals to a mainstream audience on its own terms - when will they learn their place!?"
Also, if it had been reviewed by someone with the faintest knowledge of this music, they'd know that there is no such track as "Seasons" included on this album (it's actually "Never Be The Same" on Donovan Bennett's Seasons riddim) and be aware that the dividing line between "hardcore ragga and all-out pop" is a fiction - each is the other when you're in a dance and there's room for everything.
What a waste of ink.
 
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boomnoise

♫
i read this and thought along the same lines. i'm finding the omm is increasingly annoying these days, the baile funk article another example of this. the problem of the readership informing and influencing the content of the publication rather than the other way around.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
dave, for jah's sake, if you see a copy of yesterday's metro DO NOT PICK IT UP, for i fear that you might explode if you read their 'welcome to jamrock' review :)
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
god knows, but it was truly awful, along the lines of; 'bloody hell, how many kids did bob marley have?! he can't speak properly! its all mumbling! the beat is quite nice though' (i paraphrase, obv.)
 

mms

sometimes
oh come on of course 0mm is horrible ninny land -its the observers music mag- anything not cosy and bland is seen as a threat - or a kind of dark novelty . their principal aim is to support their advertisers and not alienate their readers - i went to the launch meeting . it wasn't exactly exciting but at least they dropped the big launch with Nick Hornby.
Still did learn this w/e that my flatmate used to be babysat by vashti bunyan, which is odd.
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
that magazine consistently makes me angry. the gap between how good it could be and how poor it has turned out is staggering. they have a 'new bands editor' - say no more!
 

mms

sometimes
Blackdown said:
that magazine consistently makes me angry. the gap between how good it could be and how poor it has turned out is staggering. they have a 'new bands editor' - say no more!

you would have hated the launch thing i was livid by the end of it
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
im a but surprised that's by steve yates actually. he made his name in the urban press. i thought he would know better. but then, he does cover mainly hip hop (and well, i might add). incidentally, he did a review of the soul jazz comp of acid house in word magazine that would people on dissensus would probably want to murder him for.
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
right. thats why i find it odd when he comes out with such 'broadsheety' opinions when writing in word and the OMM
 
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stelfox

Beast of Burden
i have no objection to steve's hip-hop writing (i rarely agree with him, because we approach it in a pretty different way, but i can see why he thinks what he thinks and he puts his points across well). however, he just doesn't know a lot about or understand dancehall. sorry. i'm sure he's a nice dude, too, and this isn't at all personal. there's just a real problem in music crit circles where people think because someone can hold their own on rap, they'll be able to translate it to reggae. this is not a given.
 

gdw

Active member
f**kery

this one did make me choke on my cereal on sunday morning. the "hardcore ragga" line was particularly annoying...as dave points out this division between the two is a total fallacy. i interviewed sean p last week and it was great to hear him talk about giving the shine to jamaica by making sure all his lp tracks were produced on the island.

the reason he has never to my knowledge been criticised by jamaicans for being a "sell out" (though you will hear plenty of earnest white reggae fans dismiss him for this reason) is because the majority of his pop hits were big tunes in JA before they crossed over. he has consistently used people like lenky and tony kelly and followed trends on the island, rather than diluting his sound with r&b like shaggy.

with the new lp he is bringing a new generation of producers like don corleon and leftside to the attention of the world. and maybe one drop reggae to the attention of the charts, if 'never gonna be...' gets a chart release in the wake of jamrock.
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
isnt the new Sean Paul single on the Millitary riddim? if so who was it that did the 'iidat ting' version? that one's catchy too.
 

gabriel

The Heatwave
Blackdown said:
isnt the new Sean Paul single on the Millitary riddim? if so who was it that did the 'iidat ting' version? that one's catchy too.

no it's on stepz (renaissance production). idiot ting dat is by assassin. the whole riddim's getting a revival now thanks to sean-a-paul, which is nice.

there is a sean paul cut on military though, called dip it low, which may or may not be on the album (the tracklisting was unconfirmed last time i saw it) - and there's a big assassin cut on it too called step pon dem.

the riddims are the same tempo and lots of the pieces on each riddim have been revoiced or remixed on the other riddim and vice versa (if you see what i mean!) hence the confusion
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
no it's on the stepz riddim, which is pretty martial-sounding so you're allowed that one, martin ;) eediat ting is great, it's by assassin and about vybz kartel. the best one on this riddim, though, is vybz's faggot correction. it's totally reprehensible in just about every way but it's one of the most overblown, disgusting diss tracks you'll ever hear. it's voiced on a slightly different version of the riddim that's even punchier than the regular cut and vybz really pushes the envelope of insults. of course, he says spragga benz and assassin promote "batty sex" (yawn...) and that they're gay (bigger yawn) a few times, then he *really* lets rip. to my knowledge it's the only jamaican record to openly accuse anyone of indulging in watersports and copraphilia.
 
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gabriel

The Heatwave
more fuckery

quite clearly utter utter shit. but then what do we expect, it's the OMM. burn it!

>Dutty Rock solidified the bond between dancehall and hip hop

how? this is rubbish. it's just a dancehall album with a couple of hip hop cameos on it (tony touch rapping, rahzel beatboxing, busta rhymes MCing jamaican-style)

>yielding numerous star cameos and earning the deejay the soubriquet 'collabo king'

not true. the collabo king thing came from non-album tracks with blu cantrell, beyonce, 50 cent, fabolous & others. (the beyonce track was later added to the album, but this isn't relevant i don't think - it was reissued a year after original release)

>only the hymn to departed friends, 'Seasons', [suggests] Paul writes with anything but his dick

more bullshit. we be burnin' is about legalising weed, breakout is about partying and change the game is a comment on fame and musical development. there's a few tracks on the album i haven't heard yet as well. anyway what's wrong with writing about sex & love? isn't that what "almost all" music, art, film, literature etc is about?

like gdw & stelfox say, the hardcore ragga/pop thing is also a massive load of shit

i think we should set sizzla's bobo dread army on this guy. lol

[to be fair to yates, never gonna be the same was initially called seasons i think - and sean paul referred to it as such at the album playback party, still he clearly doesn't have a clue about dancehall]
 

gabriel

The Heatwave
stelfox said:
the best one on this riddim, though, is vybz's faggot correction. it's totally reprehensible in just about every way but it's one of the most overblown, disgusting diss tracks you'll ever hear.

YES! i'm glad someone else thinks this, i've always been pretty ashamed by the fact i bought this, given the title, but it's just so caustically brilliant, and the 'piss in a your face and shit in a your locks' line is too classic. when the track appears on the greensleeves compilation ragga ragga ragga 2005 mixed cd, silverstar loop that line ad nauseam with their cd players - too funny.

spragga's cut on stepz (done see it) which kartel is reacting to here, is also wicked.

stelfox said:
i *knew* you'd get there 1st!

LOL :eek:
 
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