Caribbean Beat — January/February 2018 (#149)

Single Spotlight
Plaisance Eddy Grant (Ice Records)
Guyanese singer and songwriter
Eddy Grant returns
to his native “land of many
waters” — and specifically his
birthplace village of Plaisance
— to contemplate his life
and how that place impacted
his musical and personal
career. The village’s history
highlights the story of its
purchase by sixty-five newly freed Africans in the immediate
post-emancipation period — one of the first of several
predominantly African villages in Guyana purchased by
the formerly enslaved with their savings. In this context
of real independence, Plaisance represents a return to
the original unfettered aesthetic of the young Eddy Grant
who successfully blended rock, pop, R&B, and Caribbean
music tropes to carve a pioneering international career.
Using his trademarked Ringbang — more an all-inclusive
philosophy than a genre — to elucidate this album, the
songs have a directness unparalleled in Caribbean songcraft.
The standout track “Now We’re All Together” lets
Grant’s voice dramatically emote the story of overcoming
and homecoming.
Bodyline Olatunji and System32 (self-released)
With a cheeky stride piano
introduction, Olatunji
Yearwood blows the lid off of
what can be expected in soca
this year, as the genre and the
players make a determined
turn in the direction of global
appeal. “Shake your bodyline,
shake your bodyline,”
the lyrical hook, has Olatunji
singing and scatting over it like a Cab Calloway clone or,
more contemporarily, Kid Creole, to drive party folk and
crowds to the dance floor. Producer System32 has made
magic with the vocals that spit rapid-fire wordplay in
pleasing tones. Add the freewheeling jazz aesthetic of a
Cotton Club big band, and we’re in a new chapter in the
continuing fusion exercise that has been soca in search of
the ultimate crossover. A driving rhythm and synth horn
line says soca, but when that clarinet solo comes in near
the end, we know we are onto something big that begins
and ends with a bang. Tadow!
Reviews by Nigel A. Campbell
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 39