Nowadays it almost seems as if the best Reggae comes from outside of Jamaica (i know, it sounds blasphemous to say or write it) and Soja (Soldiers of Jah Army) is this collective of 5 conscious Rastas from Washington DC who's been releasing albums since 2000. This release is from 2003, their latest is from 2006. This can most definitely be defined as "intellectual Roots Reggae", they don't settle whit stating that babylon is bad and that we should praise Jah. They go deep into the reasons why and speaks about the media brainwashing us, "politrixians" and more substantial subjects.
The album starts excellent whit "Revolution cry", a much personal reflection about feeling alienated from society and what this world is coming to, what we leave to our children. Once may think it's your regular "this society sucks" song but it's so much deeper than that. It has a kinda "Rockers" vibe to it while never straying from the rootsy feel of this album. Next up is the equally great "Reality" who deals whit the conflict of intellectualism and religion and reminds us that Jah gave us the ability to think, analyse and find solutions to problems and that we should not value ourselves and our minds to high cause there are still a lot that we don't have the solutions to. It's a song whit a refreshing drive and energy to it, you wanna go out and act more than to sit home smoking after having heard this song.
"Peace in a time of war" is about "politrix", the Bush administration, it's policies and how the American people was thinking when they elected this much criticised man to be their president. One could probably write page upon page about this subject. What makes this song stand out is once again it's intellectual touch and how it's not really a Bush diss song but more one being critical to politicians in general. One of my favourites on this album is "Rasta courage" where the singer say "...don't defend no black and I don't defend no white, I defend the truth and all of that", much important lines shattering one of the biggest missunderstandings about RastafarI as some sorta vehicle for black Racists who want to kill all whites. It's not about that, it's about truth and righteousness and the often strong "pro black" sentiments being found in RastafarI is just a side product of this "truth and righteousness" stuff. The song itself is a little more laid back than some of the other songs on here but still not too slow.
As far as their sound goes it's a very clever blend of genres where Soja never looses focus on what is commonly termed as "Roots Reggae", they manage to blend in touches of Rock and contemporary music whitout ever alienating their core crowd. Im usually no fan of the fusion of genres (not even those i like) but i can live whit this (even thoroughly enjoy it) as SOJA knows exactly how far they can go before things turn into a missmatch of genres satisfying no one.
Well, this is a Cd that really get's my brain going and the lyrics are "top notch", smart and original but always from a RastafarI point of view. This is one of those albums whit no "filler" songs and is much recommended to those who want to exercise their brain a little. Now i just can't wait to discover the other albums SOJA has out, i guess i just made my already loooooong "want list" a little bit longer.
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