Richie Spice – Spice in Your Life
Reviewed by Sadie O., 7/5/08
Roots rock reggae, current major star, rather mixed bag. He’s clearly got his heart in the right place, and most songs are on target although there are a few odd moments. Singing occasionally goes into some rather stoned falsetto.
No FCCs detected. I like 9 and 15 best.
1. spoken intro – ladies and gentlemen, Richie Spice…
2. *mellow downtempo acoustic groove with nyahbinghi drumming, but oddly commercial element in the backing vocals.
3. spoken intro to next song
4. ***downbeat midtempo roots skank, black pride lyrics.
5. little kids tell what they want to grow up to be. Cute…
6. **mellow downtempo riddim, sweet song.
7. **midtempo upbeat skank, upful lyrics.
8. Long spoken intro to next song in THICK Jamaican patois.
9. ****midtempo skank with nyahbinghi drumming, violent times lyrics, good sound.
10. ***downtempo skank, strong instrumentation and backing vocals, interesting singing, hard times lyrics.
11. ***midtempo bubble, odd but memorable vocals.
12. “smooth jazz” sax, extremely slow acoustic riddim, upful lyrics.
13. ***upbeat bubble, overcome lyrics.
14. Sound effort of bong smoking
15. ****midtempo skank, making the interesting claim that smoking pot makes one smarter. Yep!
16. Downtempo acoustic nyahbinghi, unfortunately with more “smooth jazz” sax. Sweet, though.
17. *upbeat skank, love song.
18. *downtempo skank, summer song. Guest vocalists (one rather naughty bit), unusual piano style for reggae song.
19. ***midtempo skank with electronics, similar to an early Black Uhuru hit.
20. *slow skank, paeon to reggae.
21. Outro, like the intro.