Ras Teo - Rasta Royalty + Ras Teo meets Lone Ark - The 40 Children (A-Lone Productions)

Following 2024's 'Coming Home', 'Rasta Royalty' marks Ras Teo's second collaboration with Swedish producer Magnus 'Daddy Natural' Hjalmarsson. The up-tempo opener and title track immediately sets the tone, while Patrick 'Aba Ariginal' Tenyue and Bo Frick provide excellent horn arrangements on 'Leggo Beast'. The album's most striking track, however - if only because it ties in so closely with current reality - is 'Global Warming', in which Ras Teo warns of the consequences of climate change:




Temperatures are rising
And Jah birds are dying
The glaciers are melting
Each and every day
Each and every day

Global warming is coming
Is coming for you

The world is heating up
The climate is changing
Babylon your time is near
Industrial pollution spreading everywhere
Jah man a vex, vex
Jah man a vex

Global warming is coming
Is coming for you
...

As the icing on the cake, Hjalmarsson also delivers a full dub counterpart to the album.

Musically, 'The 40 Children' may not differ greatly from 'Rasta Royalty', but thematically it is an entirely different story. Both the title and the cover photograph refer to the Arba Lijoch, a group of forty Armenian orphans who escaped the atrocities of the Ottoman Empire and were later adopted by Ras Tafari, the future Emperor Haile Selassie. During a visit to the Armenian monastery in Jerusalem, he met the children and was so deeply moved that he obtained permission from the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem to adopt them and bring them to Ethiopia. He made sure they received a musical education and, under the direction of the Armenian conductor Kevork Nalbandian, they went on to become Ethiopia's first official state orchestra (the forerunner of the Imperial Bodyguard Orchestra). Ras Teo beautifully recounts their story in 'Arba Lijoch':

They escaped the genocide in Armenia fled to Jerusalem  
They ended up inna orphanage 
Then selassie came and visit them in the year of 1924  
Was so moved by them and ask the Armenian patriarch to take them as his children 

Arba lijoch 
The 40 children 
Arba lijoch 
Selassie I children x 2

Selassie I took the children to his palace 
Fed them, loved them and educated them 
Those same Armenians became the Imperial Royal Brass Band 

Arba lijoch 
The 40 children 
Arba lijoch 
Selassie I children x 2

His majesty asked Kevork Nalbandian to compose the national anthem for Ethiopia 
And them called it Happy Be Ethiopians Teferi Marsh 

Arba lijoch 
The 40 children 
Arba lijoch 
Selassie I children x 2

If you would like to delve even deeper into the history of Armenians in Ethiopia, you certainly can, as Ras Teo carried out extensive research into the relationship between Armenia and Ethiopia and summarized it all in the comprehensive liner notes accompanying the album.

'The 40 Children' is also the first Ras Teo album to be released on the new Aaron & Moses sublabel; the name a symbolic tribute to the fruitful collaboration between Ras Teo and Roberto Sanchez. The track list also includes a song bearing the same title, although lyrically it reflects on the biblical story of Moses and his brother Aaron. Another biblical lesson follows with 'Prophet Job'.

With 'Killamanjahro', Ras Teo takes us to Africa's highest mountain, while closing track 'Tell Lie Vision' is a scathing attack on the harmful influence of television. Fans of Roberto Sanchez's productions may recognize the riddim of the latter from Linval Thompson's 'Fyah Ina Babylon' or Benjammin's 'Be Yourself', while 'Mr. Taxman' rides the riddim of Willie Williams' 'Here We Are'.

And once again, Roberto Sanchez rounds things off with an equally enjoyable dub companion.

In short, two albums offering Ras Teo at his very best. Fulljoy!