Unity in the Warande: a Blackboard Jungle label night

For this edition Blackboard Jungle was invited, not purely as sound, but as producers as well. The band on stage, The Rockers Disciples, recorded two albums after all, one with Roberto Sanchez and the other with Reality Souljahs, both albums produced by Blackboard Jungle. At a quarter to ten The Rockers Disciples kicked off with a nice intro clearly demonstrating that this band knows how to create a reggae vibe. Good musicians, but unfortunately no wind section. Thankfully, it's present on the albums.

Roberto Sanchez was first up and started off with one of his new songs, 'Tell the children', a long-winded version, just like the disco mix on the album. It was followed by almost all new songs: 'Problems', 'Act true', 'Brand New Day',… In between there was time for songs produced by Roberto Sanchez himself, such as 'Don't use me', released by his own 'Lone Ark' label. He finished the set with 'Chemical Food'. This song, to the riddim of 'Smoking my Ganja', is an indictment of the news ways of producing food in this capitalist society. Music with a message!

Then, from the UK, it was Reality Souljahs' turn: a singer (Maverick) and MC (Selekta Goldfinga) who've been at it for quite a couple of years. They started out in 1990 with four people as the Youth Sound of Entebbe Soundsystem. Now there's only two of them, but they've released a second album in the meantime, recorded and produced by Dougie Wardrop of Conscious Sounds. In addition, they have many releases on other labels such as Roots Hitek, Storm & Break and of course Blackboard Jungle.

The twosome took the stage dressed up in army uniforms and brought a show with lots of energy. They are clearly in tune with each other and effortlessly switched between rapping and singing. 'Give Jah the glory', 'Never walk alone', 'The good, the bad & the ugly', 'Rentman', … Naturally, tonight they mainly performed tracks from the new album, but added some songs of their own such as 'Jah pon mi mind'. This song was recently released and was until then mainly known as dubplate in the sound system scene.

After these two shows Giraffe took over for a bit with a nice roots selection. Meanwhile, the stage was set up for the next performance of Kibir La Amlak (Glory to Jah), who was a guest last week with their sound system at ReggaeBus in Brussels. With JT deejaying, Mulu on the cello and Stamina Li as chanter and on the sax, they delivered a solid dub show. Meditative stepping!

Maybe it had all sounded even better if the sound was directed by Blackboard Jungle. By now, they can justly be called the largest sound of Europe. Not only is the sound equally good every time and everywhere, the tunes they play are generally of the highest quality, and they are an omnipresent element in the European roots scene.

Of course Reality Souljahs and Roberto Sanchez lined up behind the sound to end the party together. I didn't see it for myself, because we left after the appropriate 'The age is growing' by Johnny Clarke… Big up Giraffe & the Warande for another successful edition of Unity!