An evolution of the 70s deejay style, rub-a-dub announced itself in the early 80s as the harbinger of the digital years. By rub-a-dub we mean "riding the riddim", which is what the popular Toyan, Brigadier Jerry, Charlie Chaplin, Lee Van Cliff and Yellowman do, as U Roy, Big Youth, Dennis Alcapone and other deejays did before them. Except that rub-a-dub differs from the deejay style in its stripped-down and most often original rhythms, unlike the deejays who voiced over riddims that had already been used. Toyan thus opens hostilities with an irresistible Posse Ready, on a superbly pared-down instrumental by the Roots Radics. The emblematic rub-a-dub band, which would later become Israel Vibration's regular backing band, incidentally provides all the riddims on these 17 tracks, produced at Channel One between 1980 and 1983.
With a bass / drums pairing forming the bulk of the sonic backdrop, it is in the bewitching vocal technique and the often finely written lyrics that rub-a-dub takes on its full meaning. The lyrics alternate between chronicles of daily life and more serious themes, as with Yellowman and Fathead, who echo the political violence reaching a critical point in Jamaica in the early 80s on Operation Eradication, as does Lui Lepkie on the grave Water Gone. The late Nicodemus shines on the fearsomely sharp Bone Connection, on Volcano's Disease Riddim. From the big names of the genre to the most mysterious, a fine variety of artists is thus paraded. A serious and solid compilation, "Rub a Dub Soldiers" (with its superb sleeve) works above all as a snapshot of a crucial period in Jamaica.
