Consumer Guide Album
Mutabaruka: Check It! [Alligator, 1983]
Is it okay to be impressed by this reggae poet's decidedly unmystical humanist Rastafarianism and still wish his presentation had more of that old-time religion? Though he camouflages his intellectual distance better than Linton Kwesi Johnson, his compassion is less self-effacing, and his dub modernism plays a little too loose with the riddims to suit me. But he has plenty to teach anyone who values reggae strictly for its straightforward charm.
B+
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