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REVIEW: ABDULKAREEM - Peace In The City (Kingston Connexion)

"Peace In The City" is the second release for France based Kingston Connexion label. Kingston Connexion is a Jamaican distribution and production company based in France and dedicated to release very hard to find vinyl and never released rarities from the past days of roots reggae. Kingston Connexion's first release was the highly appriciated "Nowhere", a David Madden production with singer Ras Danhi on vocals. For this release they've chosen to release a tune which they distributed as a repress some years ago but because of a noise pressing of the repress and the finding of an unreleased dub version it has now seen light again.

"Peace In The City" was originally released on Abdulkareem's own Akbar label in the mid-late seventies. The lyrical content of the song can easily be connected to the political violence which was raving and dividing Jamaica in the seventies. "Yesterday we were at war, today we are at peace..:". I'll guess this is Abdulkareem's vision of how things would be when the conflict had come to an end or maybe the vision that greeted him when things gradually started to get a little better by the end of the seventies

soundclip - Abdulkareem - Peace In The City

Musically this is a fine example of seventies Jamaican roots with steady drum and bass lines courtesy of Sly & Robbie and those smooth jazzy hornlines I so much miss in modern roots music. Abdulkareem isn't the best singer I've heard but like many of the outputs at the that time, and up to this time still, it was more about getting the music and the message out so you could also be apart of music rather than standing by and dreaming of it. Production is credited to Abdulkareem himself and when listening to the B-sides version you can hear him instruct the musicians, Sly & Robbie among others, how to play.

Watch out for the second cut on this rhythm "Children Of Israel" with John Giscombe on vocals. Soon to drop as Kingston Connexion's second 7:inch release.

Rootsy Collins - 8/9-06