ZINC FENCE RECORD OF THE WEEK

The Earth Is The Lord's - Louie Culture (Qabalah)

 

This anthem to the cultivation of the herb is the best roots record to come out of Jamaica for quite a while. Judging by the strength of this tune, the ganja that Louie Culture grows is truly of the highest grade.

His ecstatic, full voiced delivery on The Earth Is The Lord's suggests that he has partaken liberally of his own crop prior to voicing this tune. Over a truly wicked rhythm, Louie Culture sings of how

"Away from the city where the traffic overflow
The flowers dem bloom as the green grass grow
Mi transplant the few likkle herb seeds mi grow."

If you don't want to go out and buy a pair of gardening gloves after hearing that, then there's something wrong with your ears. Louie Culture's cut holds the raw rhythm on the B side and any toaster who wants to tear the dance down should get their hands on this as soon as possible. The other cut, Luciano's Babylon A Try is as strong as you would expect from an artist of Luciano's calibre. On its reverse side is Chant & Plant from the interestingly named Talented Peter Franks, who seems to have been digging alongside Louie Culture on the same hillside plot. He sings how

Mi haffi till the soil and plant
Mi haffi beat mi drum and chant.

suggesting that he too takes a thorough sampling of the crop at the end of a hard day's planting and chanting.

Louie Culture is an artist who makes fewer records than many but will often steal the show when heard live. Check Cut Out That, his cut to Capleton's celebrated mid nineties anthem Tour to hear another slice of Louie Culture at his best. The Earth Is The Lord's is a record to set alongside Desi Roots' Weedfields or Sylford Walker's Lambs Bread in the canon of herbsman anthems, and their can be no higher praise than that.

Incidentally, The Earth Is The Lord's is worth buying for the label alone, a roaring lion and a multicoloured, beautifully detailed map of Africa. Essential!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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