Warrior King - The Rootz Warrior (Rootz Warrior Productions/Zojak World Wide)

For 'The Rootz Warrior' Warrior King collaborated among others with producer Colin 'Bulby' York and Dutch Wallboomers Music. The resulting album is a surefire hit featuring several tracks with serious hit potential and a series of well-known riddims providing some recognizability. 'The Rootz Warrior' opens with 'His Majesty (He's Worthy)', an understated tribute to Haile Selassie I over a nyahbinghi-inspired rhythm. At the end of the song the voice of the emperor himself can be heard (an excerpt of Haile Selassie's speech before the League of Nations after Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia in 1936). For 'Ain't Giving Up' Warrior King recycled the riddim of Israel Vibration's 'Rudeboy Shufflin', making it one of the top tracks on 'The Rootz Warrior'. 'Heartbreaker' is far from a bad duet with Richie Spice, but it pales in comparison with 'I Wouldn't Do That', for which Warrior King invited Beres Hammond to rerecord the latter's hit over the Know Yourself riddim. As the title suggests, 'President Yahya Jammeh' is a tribute to Gambian president Jammeh, a man who in the west is mostly known for his averse stance on homosexuality and because of his claims to be able to cure aids and asthma, but is still highly rated by a lot of Jamaican reggae musicians who often own a second residence in Gambia. 'Watching You' is another great tune, this time over Computer Paul's Sha La Laa Juggling riddim (a re-lick of the You Should Have Known riddim), and for 'Greater' Warrior King also rehashed a classic, this time the Tonight riddim. We can fully understand the fact artists are always looking to connect with a younger audience, but as far as yours truly is concerned, the heavy dubstep of 'Sign Of The Times' makes 'The Rootz Warrior' end somewhat on a false note. That being said, this remains one of the better releases we've heard thus far this year.