After Busy Signal, who released his first album on Greensleeves, it is now the turn of Mavado, another rising star of Bounty Killer's Alliance, to do so on VP Records. Announced months in advance in every medium, this release gave rise to huge official launch parties in New York and then in Jamaica. Since his breakthrough a few months ago with the track Real Mc Coy, Mavado has had the wind firmly in his sails and enjoys unanimous acclaim. As with Vybz Kartel in his day, for whom it was impossible not to mention Don Corleon, it is just as obligatory to mention Daseca when talking about Mavado, a young label built by Craig "Serani" Marsh and the brothers David and Craig Harrisingh, creators of some of the best riddims of the past two years. The album opens, in fact, with the singer's two singles on the label's biggest riddim, the Anger Management, Real Mc Coy and Full clip with Busy Signal, mixed into a single track to give Real McCoy with a full clip.
"This CD is rated G, as in Gangster. Inspired by an authentic ghetto experience." So begins "Gangster for Life". A native of Cassava Piece, David Brooks (Mavado's real name) made his name above all thanks to his atypical profile as a gangster singer, who has nothing to envy the most hardcore DJs, in both attitude and subject matter. "Gangsta for life, the symphony of David Brooks", inevitably autobiographical, is built like a film noir, interweaving themes: guns (Last Night, Top Shotta nuh miss), sex (Squeeze breast on DJ Liquid's Bluetooth), a sense of honour, portraits of the ghetto (Gully Side, Born and raised), a murky atmosphere (They fear me, Dying), the figure of the departed father (the beautiful reggae of Sadness, a tribute to his father who was assassinated in Switzerland last year, produced by Bobby Digital) and songs of redemption (Amazing Grace, previously unreleased on the Tremor riddim series by Stephen McGregor). Not to mention the many interludes that structure the narration. An authentic Jamaican "gangsta music", whose realism has nothing to envy the best-known American exponents. The dancehall album of 2007?
