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Perfect: „French Connection“

  Tobias

Like most of its competition, the roots reggae of Saint Ann, Jamaica’s Perfect has to find its way in a world dominated by Elephant Man, a task that requires no small amount of wild-eyed chicken-rattle craziness.

The riddims are mostly primeval skanky one-drops (behind the strident chorus of “Absolute Blessings” and the obvious radio-prostration cover of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine”), but spread out into foot-dragging 4/4 (“Son of Jamaica”) and other hip-hop sounds. In fact, what’s different about this feller is his tongue-in-cheek anything-goes similarities to early Jay-Z – melodies are group-whistled, vocoder is used in an interesting-enough turn, call-outs are hinted at with cleverness.

The big play tune, “Mi Nah Cut My Dread,” is po-faced, though, feeling like a storm cloud refusing to rain; it could surely be seized upon for remixes by outside-the-genre guys.

By Eric Saeger

Homepage: Perfect
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