Chant Down Babylon

1	No More Trouble / Erykah Badu 4:51
2	Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock) / Krayzie Bone 3:29
3	Johnny Was / Guru 4:19
4	Concrete Jungle / Rakim 4:12
5	Rastaman Chant / Busta Rhymes 4:18
6	Guiltiness / The Lost Boyz 3:53
7	Turn Your Lights Down Low / Lauryn Hill 5:46
8	Jammin' / MC Lyte 4:08
9	Kinky Reggae / The Ghetto Youths Crew 3:53
10	Roots, Rock, Reggae / Steven Tyler 4:05
11	Survival / Chuck D 3:50
12	Burnin' and Lootin' / The Roots 4:54

Barnes & Noble

Nearly two decades after his death, Bob Marley's mystique has grown only stronger. Now, with the arrival of CHANT DOWN BABYLON, expect Marley's mass appeal to grow ever larger. Originally titled A REBEL'S DREAM, the new disc aims to bridge the gap that Marley perceived between American R&B fans and his music by using studio trickery to create "duets" between Marley and hip-hop stars such as Lauryn Hill, Busta Rhymes, Erykah Badu and others. While the technique (deployed on works by Patsy Cline and Nat King Cole) may seem ghoulish, reggae, which revels in technological tinkering, is the natural home for such studio "versioning" and the mixing of past and present. At any rate, the tracks here, produced by Marley's son Stephen, are uniformly excellent. From the retro organ bark of "No More Trouble," the younger Marley proves to be a tasteful and innovative remixer, wrapping his father's voice around Badu's harmonies, creating vocal ad libs, and retaining a vintage, soulful feel amid the street beats. Emcees like Guru, Rakim, and Chuck D draw fire from Marley's rebel legend, igniting "Johnny Was," "Concrete Jungle," and "Survivors," and Busta puts his Jamaican heritage to good use with a patois delivery that only he could get away with. Only "Roots, Rock, Reggae" with Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, comes off forced, and Lauryn Hill's beautiful way with "Turn Your Lights Down Low" would have made a better ballad than a Mary J. Blige-style hip-hop-soul jam. Of all the directions CHANT DOWN BABYLON could have taken -- the sterile crooner/rapper "combinations" of current dancehall reggae, or Marley karaoke -- Stephen Marley's picked the winner. Equal parts rap and reggae, new and old, CHANT DOWN BABYLON fulfills a rebel's dream after all. Somewhere, Bob is smiling down at Babylon. Mark Schwartz

All Music Guide

Sometime during the '90s, overdubbing classic recordings with new instruments and vocals became an accepted practice, since the intent was to introduce legendary artists to a contemporary audience. Evidently, these good intentions made these albums better than, say, overdubbing strings on Hank Williams' spare recordings after his death, since that was just crass commercial pandering and this was noble missionary work. Chant Down Babylon -- an attempt to refashion Bob Marley recordings as urban and hip-hop (and, in the case of "Roots, Rock, Reggae" with Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, rock) for a new generation, based on the presumption that, since Marley never reached the broad African-American audience he desired during his lifetime, there was no time like 1999 to try it again -- is arguably the most extreme reworking to date. Unlike many of these sort of recordings, the original musical base is not completely discarded, as the resulting vocal and instrumental overdubs are meshed with the originals. There are a few tracks, such as the Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill contributions, that work particularly well. Stephen Thomas Erlewine