This DVD offers over an hour of live recordings of Jamaica's most famous artists. It is a musical grab bag where languid roots reggae and horny dancehall quickly alternate. The performances are interspersed with short interviews about the factors that shaped Jamaican music: poverty, religion and violence. For example, Bounty Killer tells, in a tone in which someone else orders a cheese sandwich,
… that he was hit by flying bullets as a fifteen-year-old boy. Another dancehall artist who often speaks is Elephant Man. He does that pretty stoned, but the images of his performance in Amsterdam are hyper-energetic. Roots reggae singers such as Bunny Wailer and Gregory Isaacs contrast calmly against the excited dancehall positions. But don't let their meditative appearance fool you: the subtle Gregory 'Lonely Lover' Isaacs sings just as viciously about the violence on the island. Together with the cheerful show of the eternally young Toots Hibbert, Isaacs' Kingston 14 is therefore one of the undisputed highlights of this DVD. (PdK)more
