MUSIC IS MY OCCUPATION

 

The cover should really have all of the information you need to proceed - 1960s ska instrumentals recorded by some of the most legendary names in the game. This compilation was put together by Trojan in the late '80s...and it's as great as you think it might be. 

MUSIC IS MY OCCUPATION: SKA INSTRUMENTALS 1962-1965 

 

 

MUTABARUKA

I can assure you that Outcry is as killer as the cover suggests. Jamaican dub poet MUTABARUKA sounds fully acclimated to the eighties world of synths and production here, quite a departure from  the gloriously primitive debut Check It!, but it was 1984....so almost all production miscues are forgiven. But listen underneath - the flute on "Canaan Lan'," the poetry of "Black Queen," and the entirety of "Blacks In Amerika" and "Free Up De Lan'" demonstrate the power without question. 

OUTCRY

COUNT OSSIE & THE MYSTIC REVELATION OF RASTAFARI

I'm not going to get pretentious and try to regurgitate a googled history of COUNT OSSIE, or of this specific record. I knew nothing at all when I dropped $5 on a cassette in Oakland on the recommendation of a (trusted) record shop owner, and this cassette is probably my single favorite sonic acquisition of 2018. A triple LP released in 1973 (reissued a few times since), it's hypnotic, weird, powerful, beautiful, spiritually advanced in an indescribably aural sense. It's wonderful, and I am grateful to have the sounds in my life. 

GROUNATION