Title
Artist
Label
Format
Date

 '83 Rhythm
Various
Greensleeves-Munich
CD/LP
December 17, 2007

Track list
  1. A No Me Dat - Richie Spice
  2. Roots - Spanner Banner
  3. Love, Love - Warrior King
  4. Battlefield - Bobby Tenna
  5. Caan Go Round Good - Tony Rebel
  6. Vulgarity - Natural Black
  7. Poverty - I-Octane
  8. Music Is Love - Lutan Fyah
  9. Daddy - Queen Ifrica
  10. Heights - Chuck Fenda
  11. Ready Now - Turbulence
  12. It's Been A While - Teflon
  13. Can't Forget - Prestige
  14. '83 Riddim - Kemar McGregor
Rating : from 5 (excellent) to 1 (poor)
Vocals : 4 Backing : 5 Production : 5 Sound quality : 5 Sleeve : 3
Cou$ins Records producer Donville Davis - who had already proven he's capable of relicking classic riddims in fine style - also showed a nose for picking the right riddims to license on the three various artists compilations, as "Strictly One Drop Vol. 1"'s inclusion of CJ James 'Without Love'-riddim and of course Donovan 'Vendetta' Bennett's 'Heavenly' and then on 'Mo-Bay' & 'Desperate Lover' two riddims from Byron Murray's In The Streetz label were featured, strange as it may seem with In The Streetz not only being an outlet for Byron Murray's own productions, but through their Rhythm Streetz Series Byron Murray (and Mr. Vegas) also released on CD and LP some extremely successful riddims by other extremely hot producers. Cou$ins Records kicked off a new series of one riddim instead of two riddim albums called Ride The Rhythm with "Hail The I" featuring the first riddim on the Riddim Kings label produced by Stefan & Sean Shelton a.k.a the Riddim Kings and then one month later they returned with a string of one drop releases licensed from Kemar 'DJ Flava' McGregor's Flava Music and No Doubt Records. Kemar McGregor, who of course cemented his name as one riddim producer with the 'Triumphant'-riddim backing Gyptian's "Mama" and then chipped in with the nice 'Road Block'-riddim and the very nice various combination album aptly titled "Combination" provided Cou$ins with the three excellent one-riddim albums "Trumpet", "Flute" and "Key Riddim" with three volumes in the Ride The Rhythm series in just 8 days. And Greensleeves, who seemed to have stalled their one drop one riddim releases just like the (dancehall) Greensleeves Rhythm Album series, must have felt they missed out on one too many album there, thus now snatching Kemar McGregor's very succesful latest riddim ''83 Rhythm' for release as a Greensleeves album instead of Cou$ins licensing it.

The '83 Rhythm' is an as strong and as big riddim from No Doubt Records (laid by Riff, Monty and Paul 'Wrongmove' Crossdale with percussion by C. Downer and beautiful backing vocals by the ladies Lewis and Cole) as the aforementioned 'Triumphant', 'Trumpet', 'Flute' and 'Key'-riddims and Richie Spice's "A No Me Dat" opening this album is a tune that in my opinion is even stronger than his killer tune "The World Is A Cycle" over Fresh Ear's 'Guardian Angel'-riddim that earlier this year topped the Jamaican charts and even then isn't the best tune released in this selection ... Richie Spice's brother Spanner Banner is also in very fine form for his lovers(!) tune "Roots" and so is Warrior King crying out for "Love, Love". Newcomer Bobby Tenna impresses with "Battlefield" and veteran singjay Tony Rebel's "Caan Go Round Good" is as solid (and as conscious) as his tunes always use to be. Guyanese singjay Natural Black is one of the most constant vocalists in the business, almost everytime delivering excellent tunes, this time the fierce repatriation tune "Vulgarity", followed by Arrows Recordings' protégé I-Octane who excels singjaying the harsh (but unfortunately true) "Poverty" and Lutan Fyah contributes a great tribute to our music with "Music Is Love".

The best tune across the ''83' comes courtesy of Derrick Morgan's daughter Queen Ifrica, it's her huge controversial current hit "Daddy" don't touch me there of which the lyrically striking personal approach, melodic take on such a touchy subject, incest, is so superb, that you must be made of stone not to have pimples all over listening to this tune. The tune is delivered so convincingly and spreading the intense pain that it becomes hard to believe it is in fact not autobiographical (and for those still thinking so and wondering about Derrick Morgan now, Queen Ifrica never met her biological father before the age of 22). The outstanding Queen Ifrica tune is followed by Chuck Fenda's strong "Heights", Turbulence's moving lovers tune "Ready Now" and one of Teflon's best songs to date "It's Been A While" that owes a lot to Sizzla's style. The last vocal tune comes from Kemar McGregor's protégé Prestige (making me wonder why his other protégé Gyptian hasn't been included on this riddim) doing the heavily auto-tuned "Can't Forget" before this great one-drop one riddim album is closed with the clean instrumental version of the "'83 Riddim", a brilliant riddim backing one of the most impressive tunes released this year, Queen Ifrica's "Daddy (don't touch me there), for which solely this album can be bought, but with so many more strong tunes on it my recommendation is even stronger.