Before The Dawn

Buju Banton – Before the Dawn
Reviewed by Sadie O., 10/29/10
Roots rock reggae. Buju’s rough and rather wild vocals contrast with the sweet roots riddims and the rather too perfect female chorus. The good tracks are solid roots rock with fine vocals.
Couldn’t make out any FCCs, but I couldn’t make out every word…
1. 4:30 **classic upbeat roots skank. Bit of talking intro, then positivity song.
2. 3:33 *folky acoustic guitar and piano, very mellow upful vibe. Buju get quite het up about “it”, whatever “it” is.
3. 6:58 ***a bit of nyahbinghi, a hint of Caribbean beach vibe, exhortation of righteousness.
4. 4:07 **bouncy rootsy skank, nice guitars, more information on how to live up right.
5. 5:14 **rather downtempo but cool riddim, ballad of oppression.
6. 4:30 **big horn and vibraslap intro, rather uptempo skank with a hint of nyahbinghi drumming, let’s get along lyrics.
7. 5:02 *downtempo sweetness and chimes. A bit too much sweetness for me, mitigated barely by Buju’s rough vocals.
8. 3:24 *sort of like hard rock… Lyrics seem to be about “no smoking” being the last straw.
9. 4:08 acoustic guitar and tinkly keyboards, “soul” backing vocals by Gramps Morgan. All about a woman with a terribly hard life. Doesn’t do anything for me at all.
10. 3:34 ***solo vocal intro, then uptempo roots bubble.