featured artist Samory I global reggae charts | issue 4 / august <strong>2017</strong> 8
global reggae charts featured artist SLOW MUSIC We are living in times marked by speed. We are always-on, the 24-hour news cycle is shaping our perception of the world around us and ever-louder content from all domains is trying to get our attention at all times. This development hasn’t stopped from music. Streaming services in combination with smartphones have made huge parts of mankind’s collective music library accessible at all times and places. Slowly but surely, the now dominant form of music distribution and consumption is influencing artists’ production and release processes. Famously, Drake chose to call its latest release “More Life” a playlist, not an album. Instant audience feedback, in the form of data provided by the streaming services, influences marketing decisions. When Atlanta rapper Future released his album by the same name, the artist’s team quickly realized that Mask Off was the most popular song among fans - not the originally intended-as-single Draco. So, they changed course and started promoting Mask Off on the fly, including the production of a video. And the creative process also changes due to the possibilities that come with the fully digitized music world: Kanye West, for instance, continued to make changes to his 2016 album Life Of Pablo even after its release on Tidal. All this illustrates: The music world, too, operates at a faster speed these days. For the most part, that is. Because every once in a while, you’ll find a project that runs counter to the broad trend line (as it turns out, those projects apparently tend to do well around here at the <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Reggae</strong> <strong>Charts</strong>). Samory I’s debut album Black Gold falls in this category of rarities. Let’s dub them Slow Music. Similar to the principles of the Slow Food movement (and other subsequent Slow Living derivatives), Black Gold was given plenty of time to grow and ripen. The Wikipedia page on Slow Living states: “People every day are constantly living at a fast pace which is making them feel like their lives are chaotic but with slow living they end up taking a step back and start enjoying life being conscious of sensory profusion.” Even though I wouldn’t describe Black Gold as “profuse”, at least not when it comes to its production, it does indeed provide a lot of sensory enjoyment to the listener. It is an organic album that’s full of analogue musical goodness with a deep, rootsy vibe that is reminiscent of a bygone era. On the LP’s 13 tracks, the 27-year old Samory I creates a dense reggae experience that isn’t beholden to today’s common genre aesthetics - but is very current nonetheless. This quality has a lot to do with the team that Samory I assembled for the project. The production was lead by Rory “Stone Love” Gilligan aka RoryStoneLove (on whose BlackDub Music label the album is released as well). Together, they made sure to work with renowned musicians, for example Kirk Bennett who provides his distinct drum play, legendary Saxophonist Dean Fraser and one of the last performances of the late Nambo Robinson on the trombone. On the engineering side, too, the project gathered notable talent. AnchorStudios’ Delroy “Fatta” 7 global reggae charts | issue 4 / august <strong>2017</strong>