... the aural, and the oral ...

... seems I've been down this route before ... I'm talking about a mighty highway that may as well have been main-street, for it's utter familiarity ... Canada's roadways tend to be consistently maintained, at a high standard, even berms and sidewalks are usually groomed ... aesthetic homogeneity making for safer driving conditions is the governing wisdom, and while that may be so, monotony and sheer distances involved in traversing Canadian landscape can give an active mind too much room to venture-off into a world of contemplation, or distraction ...

... lately, I'm spending more time commuting in and around the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) ... yesterday, after tuning out several Mario Lanzas, one or two Sarah Harmers, Weezy, April Wine and Rush (not the band, but Limbaugh frothing from a Buffalo, NY station), I settled on eclectic CBC Radio2 for audio companionship, winning-out by virtue of a forward reggae groove designed to ensnare an ackeelover ...

... complacency with my listening choice was shattered by the unmistakable sound of Mick Jagger's voice in the mix, plenty Dave "Eurythmics" Stewart, Joss Stone and Ras Damian Marley's trademark Gong-flava adding to the surrealism ... wellwhaddyaknow, there's a new supergroup blowin' through the air and its first release is the groovy "Miracle Worker" exuding the sweet aroma of a phat Jamaican joint ... SuperHeavy ...

... alas, that was the only reggae I heard on this ride, still, it's good to know Robert Plant continues to make cool music, as suggested by "Angel Dance", his recent Los Lobos cover that rocked me for a mile or three ... any random graze over the music scene brings a freedom from delineation, non-binding as that may be ... and anyway, I find reggae in everything with a heartbeat ...

... between newsbreaks focusing on the Kandahar Karzai killing and traffic-updates regarding a fatal accident impeding flow in both directions, it was trippy to hear Andre 3000 being touted to play Jimi Hendrix in an upcoming biopic,  followed by some Outkast to link vibes old and new, and leave tragedy behind ...

... just then, as if some perverse puppeteer conspired to remind me of the traffic, an abortive overtaker brakes sharply into my lane ... one rearward guilty glance in a wing-mirror betrayed contrition on an attractive face, when she regained her nerve she pulled out and was gone, leaving me only the memory of a provocative license plate, BJEY 247 ... barely had I begun that first flushed fantasy, when BLEW 905 zoomed by in the fast lane and I was left wondering if there was a theme convention somewhere downline...

... discretion on behalf of the presumably innocent means I must admit to slight alteration of the vehicle registration digits, but the experience is otherwise as told, complete with aural stimulation and oral innuendo ... then, they throw this out there, J.Lo is now single - stop!, too much! ... our highways and biways may be orderly and clean-as-a-whistle but with merest imagination there's sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll all over dem streets, and it could cause another ... mishap ...

... were succubi to overcome me on the road, necessitating any sort of legal plea, I imagine that basing my moving-violation case on solicitous license plates would backfire, so I'd be more likely to plead "not guilty yer 'onor!", citing public radio as my defense ...

... "blame it on the CBC!"...

... Distant Relatives ...

... "if this world were mine/I'd play rub-a-dub all the time"... you'll sometimes hear me spontaneously sing this out in my best Dennis Brown style, as if to broadcast the contentment a reggae soundtrack brings to my very heartbeat ... when I mix-up my selection with other styles of Jamaican music or hybrids thereof, and intersperse chosen tracks from non-Jamaican genres, I find I can enjoy continuous musical companionship ... I've collected audio this way forever and do appreciate other music-forms ... so, when I experience a tasty tune, a solid LP/CD or cross-genre fusion, I indulge my sensory need by extending the collection...

... enter the Nasir Jones-Damian Marley alliance ...















... Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones is a pre-eminent New York rapper and son of Mississipian jazz'n'blues musician Olu Dara (if the birthers ask), "Nas" needs no introduction to the hip-hop world ... Damian Robert Nesta Marley a.k.a. "Jr. Gong" also bears the name of his father ... the Iron, Lion, Zion scion of his lineage ... his mother, Cindy Breakespeare, won the 1976 Miss World Competition ...

... in spite of this princely pedigree ... or perhaps because of it ... the aristocratic duo forged a strong relationship in studio and on stage ... and straight to the ears of each other's core audience ...














... it should be noted that the recent "Distant Relatives" CD is only the latest fruit of their joint effort ... and that it was a long time in the making rather than a hastily convened affair ... significant too that musicians were in-studio with the vocalists ... resulting in a rewardingly cohesive stand-alone work ... eloquent and contemporary in content yet traditional in concept ...













... perfomer ego is an easily identifiable tendon in the muscle fibre of Hip-Hop, and frankly, a large part of why we buy it when we do ... or reject it when we find ourselves discomfited by it's more uncompromising tones ... similarly ... regurgitative versions of "the half that's never been told"(another reference to a Dennis Brown classic) and millenarian Rastafarian themes can cause a listener to move and groove in approval, or close-up and pose-off if left cold by the message ... Nas and Junior Gong know that one way to eschew ego and regurgitation is to skew toward the often-imitated-but-never-duplicated Bob Marley model ...













... lo and behold ... there's ample room onstage for conscious message, dancehall skank, Hip-Hop hype, colorful urban-lingo, two-finger gunshot salutes and a couple of maturing princes under the banner of Bob Marley's Ethio-visionary worldview ... the result is an assuredly honest collaboration worthy of props inside and outside artificial human borders ... these figurative distant relatives make modern music in a philosophical state of unity (or I-nity if you can dig it) ... served up and followed up by tours, TV talk-shows, press-junkets and special appearances ...














... to dismiss conviction of purpose and sincere belief in this mission as preaching ... or to judge song titles like "Count Your Blessings"or "Patience" (two of my faves) as light or trite in sentiment, is as egregious as adding negative stigma to the word "liberal"... and twice as damaging to one's edification ...













... upliftment for Africa at home and abroad is the aim here ... the philanthropic use of generated proceeds and serious countenance of these "riddim piranhas/like two Obamas," bespeaks a common calling and sense of purpose ... the sort of thing that elevates better music above other good music ... this is exemplified on "My Generation" which successfully updates the last track on the Melody Makers 1991 album "Jahmekya"... Joss Stone and Lil Wayne are drafted in on that one for more width ... elsewhere, strategic Stephen Marley vocals and co-production chops add weight ... and ... there's the late, great Dennis Brown again, sampled on "Land Of Promise" to rootsify the proceedings ...













... guest appearances by Somali-Canadian rapper K'naan add extra Africa to great effect including a cool turn on the summarising final track "Africa Must Wake Up"... which incidentally can segue sweetly into "T.I.A." (This Is Africa), first cut on his own release "Troubador", which features a "Simmer Down" Bob Marley sample ... K'naan's link to Africa's World Cup 2010 with "Wavin' Flag", and Damian's appearance on that CD too, ties it all together appropriately ... which is the whole point innit, One Blood/One Love ... movement of Jah people ...











... no matter how you cut it, this recording is a Marleyesque statement ... that it partners seamlessly with Nas and K'naan's Hip-Hop agenda seems the most natural thing in the world ...

... "Distant Relatives" had me at "As We Enter", the irresistable opener subsequently co-opted for a slam-dunk dubplate remix for Stone Love ... back in the day, my own grandparents lived one minute above where Damian lived as a toddler, at the foot of Russell Heights in Kingston, Jamaica ... passing by, I'd curiously crane my neck to catch a glimpse of this golden child of famous parentage ... now he's a hard-working standard-bearer of his father's unstoppable legacy and a bridge-builder through intelligent collaborations and his own solo output ...

... see 'ow t'ings work? ... keep it locked ...