Shotta Culture

Spragga Benz – Shotta Culture
Reviewed by Sadie O., 9/4/10
Reggae/Dancehall/a bit of Hip Hop, by gruff-voiced and mostly incomprehensible toaster and lots of groovy guests. Most lyrics seem to be about life in violent times (“Shotta culture” is life full of guns and violence.) There’s one really crap love song, but the rest are good to great. All cleaned up, reasonably speaking.
1. 3:22 **downtempo dancehall-flavored skank, about life in the gun zone.
2. 4:02 ***midtempo bubble, strong female chorus (featuring the great Marcia Griffiths.) Much more upful. Interesting attempts by Spragga to harmonize.
3. 3:40 ****uptempo dancehall, strong bassline, guest by Nas. Seems to be celebrating the thug life, but the sound is fine. Clearly they had to gag Nas constantly in order to sell this as “clean”…
4. 4:42 ***upbeat dancehall skank, cool male chorus. I think they cleaned up “pum pum” to “zoom zoom”…
5. 3:20 ****bouncy syncopated dancehall groove, lots of vocals, bits o’ bongos.
6. 3:18 ****downbeat dubby skank – nice sound. Seems to be about how you can be a vegetarian and still be popular…
7. 4:12 downtempo gooey love song. NOT MY CUPPA. Bleurgh.
8. 5:42 ****tough dancehall skank with lots of big name guests, esp. some nice vocals from Stephen Marley.
9. 2:40 ***downtempo totally electronic dancehall, rather goofy (duppy means ghost).
10. 4:04 ***slow skank, great bass sound, powerful vibe.
11. 4:23 *****percussion-based groove with a bit of horns, very African-influenced. Great sound, understandable and good lyrics – it’s a hit.
12. 4:09 ****crazed vocal intro. Downtempo dancehall. Pretty much all percussion and vocals. Almost hip hop – interesting production.
13. 3:00 ***lopassed electronic dancehall. Sparce and odd.
14. 4:02 *****fun pop bounce with whistling – unexpected, enjoyable.
15. 3:36 ***vocal intro sending love to fashion designers. Huh! Sparce midtempo drum-based dancehall.
16. 3:25 ***celebratory-sounding midtempo syncopated bubble, in praise of rastas.
17. 3:39 ***nyahbinghi (albeit commercially-produced) and more spoken-word than toasting (even some decent singing!) Ends with a choir exhorting us to “leave all vengence”. Huh!