Buccaneer and Lexus pair up for Freedom Of Speech on the Opera House label, this week's stand out record. Buccaneer has been making excellent records for nearly a decade now without yet breaking it big while Lexus is very definitely a new name to watch. As exciting new prospects in Jamaica usually do, he's putting plenty of product out on the market, all of it good, but I think this is his best yet. Buccaneer and Lexus make an excellent DJ pairing, inviting each other forward with a quick "Come a the mike" just like two DJs taking turns at a live show.

The Cut Up rhythm is a turbocharged dancehall stepper but if you want to hear the dub, like the old days, then tough, you'll have to go to one of the other cuts. As is increasingly the case this record does not have a vocal and a dub side but two different mixes, in this case a Raw Mix and an Edited Mix. The Raw Mix has unedited homophobuc lyrics while the Edited Mix also has unedited homophobic lyrics but with part of an occasional word blanked out like "gun", "batty", "bumba-claat" and so on. Like the "batty riders" of early 90s notoriety, all this somehow manages to suggest through concealment. You might well have been listening to such Radio Edits (designed for airplay on Jamaican radio) for a while now and thought that you were listening to something new in the DJ armoury, a pause, a deliberately missed beat for dramatic effect like those pauses in Tiger's early 90's When but now manically speeded up.

Talking of the batty rider and "batties" in general, what's with the return of "bumba-claat"? Very big in London school playgrounds back in the 70s, I thought we'd heard the last of this charming epithet, along with flared trousers, instant mashed potato and the like. Now, suddenly it's back, possibly as part of the current new wave of homophobia as a synonym for "battyman". Whatever next, big shirt collars? Anyway, here's a sample of the lyrics:

The other stand out on the Cut Up rhythm is Goofy's What the Duck Get which also has the bonus or disadvantage, depending on your point of view, of a full dub on the flip. But, what do you know, it's homophobia time on this one too with Goofy warning darkly that any "funny guy" will get "boom bye bye" and assuring us that he would never go to any "funny guy parties" and that "certain kind of game bad man don't play". The warning is repeated that all funny guy will "get what the duck get". Goofy does not go into detail on what this might be- perhaps something from a cartoon he starred in with Donald Duck back in the day?

You might well ask, what's this reviewer doing promoting homophobic records. Or, if you don't have a problem with homophobia, you might well ask what right he has to be smart about Jamaican attitudes. My standpoint is that I don't like homophobic lyrics and attitudes, whatever quarter they come from. Nevertheless I do like reggae music and if it's a great record, as are both of these, then the lyrics won't stop me buying, playing or recommending it. If, on the other hand, it's "only" a good record, then there are plenty of good records coming out of Jamaica every week so I'll listen to them and leave the homophobic record on the shelf. Anyway, both these records are excellent and I recommend them without reservation.