A band that regularly occupies number 1 on the Reggae Billboard charts and has a correspondingly large number of sales and streams - but is still largely ignored by the reggae community? A band that gives well over a hundred concerts worldwide each year, but is still exposed to violent attacks, sometimes also physical violence - for example by Buju Banton, who is said to have attacked and injured band members?
This is Christafari, a conglomerate of musicians around Pastor Mark Mohr and Avion Blackman - all of them devoted Christians who spread messages with their music. This is obviously not appreciated by reggae enthusiasts, although the lyrics, including the extensive use of the word "Jah" and quotes by Haile Selassie, are almost identical to Rasta-centered lyrics by other, generally recognized artists. No dreadlocks or perfect patois, which Mark Mohr has acquired in his long work as a missionary in Jamaica, help. Anyone who, like him, is critical of Rastafari, does not understand Haile Selassie as a deity but as an ordinary Christian and also rejects drugs of any kind, has a hard time in the community.
As expected, the abstinence is not noticeable musically - Christafari are accomplished musicians who mainly work in the classic roots reggae genre, but also well versed in dancehall - including the popular recycling of well-known riddims. The impressive back catalog proves the regular release of new albums, all recorded in the band's own studio and published on the associated “Lion of Zion” label. The fact that you can work on the sound without any time pressure is unmistakable: the arrangements are sophisticated, the mix and mastering are flawless. However, this technical production advantage also harbors a risk: Too much of a good thing can have a negative effect, dilutes the musical essence and tires the listener's ears.
Christafari's Dub Albums that complete the vocal releases are far from this danger; "Dub Supreme“(Lion of Zion Entertainment) is no exception here. As a roots-oriented Dub-Companion for the albums “99.4.1 (Reckless Love)” and “Original Love” presents versions that are cautious for Christafari standards and use the often exuberant vocals as well-dosed ethereal fragments of sound. Even the classic one Dub-Mix and the mastering are of the best quality - and yet: If the production weren't quite so flawless and pure, if there were a little more corners and edges and if the smooth surface had been treated with a little bit of dirt ... then there would be Nothing in the way of a first-class evaluation. As it is, it remains a good album that shows its strengths best when you listen to it loudly and with a good punch.
15 replies to "Christafari: Dub Supreme "
! .... that could be long again now! I just have to go back a little ...
So that no wrong impression arises, I have to say first of all, I am not a physicist, have not studied anything and am also not esoteric. But from quantum physics I know the concept of entanglement and the previous knowledge about it, but then I am immensely fascinated. It always says, “whoever claims quantum mechanics
She did not understand having got lost ”. Well, then I'm on the right track, because I don't understand anything about quantum physics. But “the thing” with the entanglement is not that difficult to understand. Roughly speaking, this means that if you emit two elementary particles of the same element in different directions or orbits and only give an impulse to one of the two, which makes it react in some way, the same reaction can be observed in the other elementary particle, although it is at all received no impulse. IS NOT COOL ?!
So the only thing that fascinates me even more DUB.
So ... and this morning I come to the office and check that again first DubBlog. First of all, nothing new. Go to Spotify and check if “Deep In Dub“News has to offer.
Which then brings me to the topic. It may be that the reggae community has ignored Christifary so far. The "Dub Community ”from DubBlog knows about this. Because gtkritz's playlist has been around for a long time
DubSlices of Christifary that put it all in my special DubPlaylist, where I brew another essence from the gtkritz playlist. Even if - or precisely because - the riddims are among the good fundamental classics from Jamaica, they can Dubs - from my point of view - in the "Primier League of Dub“Play along. Good technique and wit are available. Today of all days I got the idea to google Christifary and then I found a few VocalTunes on YouTube. Sometimes more than 6 million clicks !!! Old Swede, I thought. But I'll stay with them Dubs, because somehow their roots sound too “Catholic” to me. Not just because of the content, but above all because of the style of singing. Yes and when I then again the Dubs from Christifary (e.g. “Majestic Heights In Dub“) I just had to ask myself why I'm here DubBlog nothing was to be read about Christifary.
Out of habit I went back to the DubBlog and…. BOING !!! ……………. Christifary is the new hot topic!
Now, of course, I ask myself the question, is that just coincidence or is that further evidence that everything is interwoven after all? Then there is of course the possibility that Trumanshow wasn't a movie at all, but is my reality. Or am I in a matrix?
No, I'm not crazy (all crazy people say yes) but I try to consider all the variants so that I can say afterwards, "I knew it!"
Oh yes … "Dub Supreme “…… .. I like it! ………………………. lemmi
It's magic, lemmi :)))
By the way, I think it's very good that you from Deep in Dub you are doing a "best of" so to speak ... sometimes a bit of boredom crept into this playlist - especially with instrumentals that have nothing at all Dub have to do and water down the playlist. I keep throwing out tracks ... work in progress.
PS: You can hear the first track from LSP's on Spotify Dub Listen to the album “Heavy Rain”… feat. Brian Eno ... On-U Sound.
“You can hear LSP's first track on Spotify Dub Listen to the album "Heavy Rain" ... "
Track 2 and Track 5 are available on bandcamp!
Funny: Here Come The Warm Dreads (ft Brian Eno), Brian Eno's first solo work (1973/74) after leaving Roxy Music is called: Here Come the Warm Jets ;-)))
The two titles sound really promising, I guess it will be a nice Santa Claus present!
High gee tea! (I hope I can call you that)
So that with “Heavy Rain” was almost too difficult for me. All the keywords that I entered did not produce any result. After a while I have some kind of “stick” for an On-U.Sound playlist
found. There it went with one DubVersion of "Makumba" going on and one DubVersion of "Children Of The Light"
if I'm not wrong again. What do I have to enter in order to find "Heavy Rain" or have I checked the playlist too superficially in a hurry?
As far as your playlist is concerned, I can't tell you anything, of course, but I don't agree to the deletion of tracks ;-)
Every now and then I discover something that I skipped due to the form of the day and then have to add to my “streamlined” list on other days. In the meantime I even had to change my mind about the disciples because your list is really awesome Dubs from the Disciples can be found. I even put the vocals in another playlist.
Why don't you make yourself another “Best Off” for yourself (?) But I think I'm just talking to you. You will already know how to get along ;-) Anyway, I like the instrumentals too.
I am now making 4 playlists out of your playlist. One where I do the again Dub Shovel raisins over completely, one where I just pick out my spontaneously felt high lights and then usually develop again into very special “delicacies” for the final version.
I basically turn the concentrate of the concentrate back into a concentrated concentrate.
In the end something like a pure gold nugget of the purest remains DUB ! The only thing missing now is a playlist where I can find the DubI can still bring it to an order that, at least for me, is right. So with an introduction - main part - and an end .....................
Ok, it was definitely nice to read something from you again ………………………… .. lemmi
I also have a second deep in Dub-Playlist - only with the new releases of the last 6 months. This helps to hear the new albums again and again, to get familiar with them and then to be able to classify them on the personal popularity scale.
That sounds very interesting too!
I've already searched for it with various key words, but I'm afraid you'll have to spell it out for me so that I can also find the “News In Dub“Find a playlist. Or did I get you wrong and it should only be for you?
Greetings …………… lemmy
hey lemmi,
this is a non-public playlist that I made for my own convenience :)
The same tracks are also in the deep Dub... and if you sort them by date and then add the latest 500 tracks to your own playlist, it's the same. No witchcraft.
Greetings,
Christafari, the band name alone is a contradiction in terms and most likely that is why the band with their gospel reggae will not reach the community. On the one hand, referring to the “white” Christ and on the other hand having part of Haile Selassie's birth name Tafari Makonnen as the band name, that doesn't fit together. Even I, a non-Rasta, have a massive problem with that.
You could also see the "preacher" Mark Mohr with his dreadlocks as a greedy free rider or as Judas. He was once a self-confessed Rasta and marijuana as well as other drugs he is said to have consumed plentifully in his Sturm und Drangzeit.
You don't need to be surprised if the base in Jamaica doesn't do it for you and you come across as implausible.
Dreadlocks and the black king from Africa have a deep meaning for Rastas. Read it yourself, because that would lead too far here.
When I found out a long time ago that Mutabaruka didn't smoke weed, I wasn't interested in his new records for years. Which, of course, was complete nonsense. In the meantime I have long since realized.
Drugs are such a thing. Basically, I'm against drugs too, but don't include cannabis and hops. The Americans and especially the Americans have a massive drug problem in the form of tablets. Pills are sometimes "the last straw" to cling to, but so far I'm still very happy that I don't have to take pills. Should "Preacher" Mark Mohr "have explicitly preached against the Holy Herb,
I will not DubHear s from Chrastafari for more. You don't necessarily need them, because there are tons of other super Dubs.
The topic with the "white rastas" is of course something that we could use a special "thread" for. I have always seen it in such a way that it is impossible for a “white man” to be a Rasta, as Haile Selassie was or is a special phenomenon that can only really have meaning for a displaced African.
Personally, I've never had a problem with that. I can also listen to reggae music, although I cannot understand the complete Rastaphilisophy and certainly not live. Cat Stephens is a Muslim and I can also listen to music from him without having to walk around the Kaaba in Mecca. I don't need dreadlocks to do or listen to reggae. Nevertheless, when I was 16 I would also have dreadlocks
Let it grow, but today I am very happy that my mom forbade that back then and that I even kept to it.
What always bothers me is the fact that many white bands make more money with the ridddims from Jamaica than the inventors and discoverers of the riddims. If, for example, Flabba Holt had a copyright on his riddims, he would have to be a billionaire by now, as often as he has already been covered. (He has also covered riddims himself).
The fact that Gentleman made more money in a few years than Peter Tosch and Bunny Wailer put together is certainly not Tillman Otto's fault, but it clearly shows the times we are still living in and unfortunately it looks more like it is this situation aggravated rather than that the visions of Haile Selassie could come true.
What we whiteheads really have to check is that reggae is music by displaced Africans for displaced people
Was and should still be an African. It is phenomenal that Bob Marley has always fought for his concerts to be attended more by Africans and their descendants. Strangely, most of his concert-goers were whites. I often ask myself, "What is it about?"
The Dub Sessions are almost exclusively white. Africans usually don't get up like that at all Dub. And the Jamaicans themselves are back where they were before the “reggae revolution”. They're creeping up the ass of the American music market and trying to land a hit in America with cheap R&B Duncehall. For economic
and for existential reasons, I can understand all of this, but that's not particularly exciting for me. The mainstream in Jamaica itself is just as stupid as the mainstream in the rest of the world. A new second cell phone and at least one used SUV are much more important than a new ReggaeTune.
"Lets have a break" ……………… lemmi
Thank you lemmi,
that's what it was all about!
We whites have neither slavery nor deportation, see triangular trade, have to endure, we brought the shit into the world and among the people. We don't need repatriation either.
That is the basic idea of Rastafari, the motto at that time was: Look to Africa when a black king is crowned. On Nov. In 02 the time had finally come and Ras Tafari Makonnen became Haile Selassie, literally “Power of the Trinity”. His ruler title was Negusa Nagast, literally "King of Kings". He called himself the 1930th successor to King Solomon and Queen of Sheba. Many Rastas saw this as the fulfillment of prophecy and Haile Selassie has since been revered as the returned Messiah.
We whites are absolutely out of place here. That's why I think the word Christafari is absolutely over the top. The word is in my eyes tasteless and without empathy, the preacher and ex-Rasta Mark Mohr (German descent like D. Trump ???) did not understand the problem and the actual topic - who is surprised? At best you can lure uncritical Americans for the Sunday School behind the stove. Anyone who is critical of Rastafari - like Mark Mohr - has a hard time with the community, yes, thank God !!! At least they see through the perfidious rip-off.
The fact that the white artists get the fat part of the cake is unfortunately still the case. Just one example: For me it is still incomprehensible that an I Roy (LKJ: “The mighty Poet I ROY was on the wire…”) released well over 50 LPs and still couldn't live on the royalties. It ended up in the gutter - a social case.
Flabba Holt, Aston Barrett and so many others could at least have their sheep in the dry if the remuneration of musicians and their ideas were fairer. Life is extremely unjust.
Please, please, don't you step up to these gender asterisks crap! It absolutely messes up the reading pleasure. This spelling is simply grammatically incorrect and is rejected by the absolute majority of the population.
??????????????????????
I ask for an explanation! What is gender asterisk crap? I know gender madness, but where's anything with gender here? Sorry but I'm simple (you could also say “stupid”).
I have to know what is meant so that I don't repeat the same "mistakes".
Or do you mean this thing with (e.g.) salespeople? This is meanwhile the "normal madness".
He / she and it - toilets I also find exaggerated and Ampelmännchen with skirt doesn't necessarily have to be.
In addition, the girls shouldn't get so upset when a lot of things are expressed in male terms. The most important and elementary things for our existence have female names. THE EARTH ! THE SUN !
So let's have our traffic light man ...... bittääääh! ……………………… .. lemmi
"Sorry, but I'm just knitted (you could also say" stupid ")."
I have only one answer from my student days: “There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers”.
Exactly, it's about readers, musicians ...
I also find redundant, even if it is incorrect.
Hey lemmi, it wasn't about your comments, everything was great :) Like "Ras Vorbei"Notes, it's about the album review itself and about words like" listener, reader, musician ". If you want it to be so super inclusive, politically correct and gender-compliant, you'd better write “listeners”. Or rewrite entirely as "the listeners". Which of course doesn't improve the flow of reading and, in my opinion, has no added value. So the best thing to do is to keep “the listener”. It is clear that everyone is meant by this.
I can only agree with you, gendering was a mistake.
In the review, I use the inclusive spelling - of course, this has nothing to do with (spelling) rules, it is just the realistic writing.
I've been working with it for a few months, so it's not special and I don't even notice it anymore.