ALMIGHTY DOLLA
BOB ANDY
AL.TA.FA.AN.
With a career dating back to the rocksteady years and one of the finest
catalogues of heartfelt, socially pertinent tunes in all of Jamaican
music, Bob Andy still manages to turn out killers.
In 2006 he
joined forced with Luciano, one of the few modern singers with a
comparable talent, for the masterful “Create Our History” for Anthony
Senior and Boris Silvera’s Al.Ta.Fa.An. label, and in the following
year the same outfit put out this similarly melodic and soulful
offering. As always with Andy the lyrics are not just a bevy of
the latest dancehall clichés strung together to fit the latest hot
rhythm, but carefully thought out to form part of a proper song in the
traditional sense. Few could argue with lines about the
corrupting influence of money such as “Many more will holler/Many more
will cry/For the almighty dollar many more will die”, but rather than
simply repeat this refrain for the length of the record Andy goes on to
comment on the situations to which the lure/shortage of money can lead
people, including corruption, a family grieving and even insanity, as
well as confirming the need for independent thinking, education and
communication.
Other worthwhile cuts of the rhythm include
Taffari’s “I Know” (found on the flip of the Bob Andy 7”), Chezidek’s
“Leggo Dutty Babylon Ways”, Natural Black’s “Why Can’t We”, Junior
Kelly’s “Working So Hard” and Lutan Fyah’s “Red Red”.
Peter Dalton
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