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Damian "Junior Gong" Marley - "Welcome to Jamrock"
by William Ashanti Hobbs
author and co-owner of Meroen Press
November 2005
This Music Review is sponsored by:
1102 S. Adams St., ste.#5 - Tallahassee, FL 32301
850.222.6940 - www.flavamusic.net
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If there’s one thing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s
children can tell you, it’s that great things are
expected from the children of great men. The children
of Bob Marley, no doubt, have felt it from the get-go.
Damian "Junior Gong" Marley seems to embrace the
challenge with dancehall reggae that does not
bellyflop into rude boy gun talk and Shabba Ranks
wicked inna bed-isms.
"Welcome to Jamrock" begins with "Confrontation," a
jam whose militarized beat. It is made expansive with
a Prince of Persia-like string arrangement that brings
to mind Charlton Hestonesque Roman war scenes or
samurai riding horseback over Japan’s sloping hills.
Marley employs fellow Jamaican Marcus Garvey with
speech clips interluding between calls to vigilance
against the impending threat of Babylon.
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"There for you" is a tranquil song of praise to Jah.
Though Marley’s ganja-coated singing isn’t as
arresting as say, Maxi Priest, what it lacks in
histrionics, it makes up for with sincerity. "Welcome
to Jamrock" is the bush bungalow-to-the-borough banger
you’ll recognize from the radio. Damian flexes royal
instincts that, as the Ini “Here Comes the Hotstepper”
Kamoze sample suggests ("Out in the streets, they call
it murrrrrder"). Marley kills simple soundboys with
wisdom about the destitution and desperation of the
oppressed brethren in Jamaica.
"All Night" is a Shaggy-friendly, pop radio-bound cut
that will shut up whiny old schoolers who insist they
don’t like reggae. A simple enough song of a woman who
needs to be put to sleep as opposed to going to bed.
No need to check the liner notes for "Beautiful"; yes,
that is Bobby Brown in the chorus hollering as if
still in the booth for Ja Rule’s "Thug Lovin’."
Luckily his mike is turned down enough to keep a sweet
equilibrium with Marley as he rhymes of the feminine
ideal.
"Pimpa’s Paradise" borrows from daddy’s legacy. With
the help of Roots front man Black Thought, Junior Gong
adds a hip hop spin so the tale speaks to fly girls
who leave "Broken crack pipes with lipsticks traces…"
and have "more miles than a rental Avis" in their
quest for self-importance. "Move" tries on daddy’s
"Exodus" for size. Junior Gong rips it well, spitting
hard enough to prove weed has yet to mess with dred’s
breath control. "For the Babies" has an oriental vibe,
harking to the Chinese blood in the Jamaican
landscape.
"In 2 Deep" goes into Marley’s philosophy on life with
sharp caveats for those caught up in their 9 to 5’s,
children lost in the hypnotic spell of the media,
megalomaniacal entertainers and even people who go so
far as to idolize the Gong’s own lyrics. Clearly this
man is not into music for the pursuit of feeding his
ego. The result is
"Welcome to Jamrock" entering the Billboard Top 200
Albums Chart at Number 7, which is the biggest opening
week for a reggae artist in history. This hip
hop-savvy mix of cutting-edge Jamaican grooves and R&B
can place Junior Gong as the new ambassador of
Rastafarianism and dancehall – just as papa would have
wanted.
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