Runkus - IN:SIDE (Runkus Music/Delicious Vinyl Island)

You might have noticed we didn't make that "reggae concept album" and not without reason, as musically on this album Runkus mainly flirts with genres like r&b, hip-hop, trap and dancehall-light ('Pose For Me'). The closest Runkus comes to a "classic" reggae song is with '5Gs', of course a nod to the whole conspiracy theory surrounding the 5G networks for cellphone traffic and the dangerous entanglement of technology and information, but, at the same time, a combination tune featuring Jesse Royal, Kabaka Pyramid, Royal Blu and Munga Honorable, together making '5Gs'.

In regards to the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying lockdown measures, Runkus remarked: "It was one of those apocalyptic moments in life. You know when you watch a movie and you see everybody just fret? It was really like that. My thing was fight or flight... Would I panic too, stress and get depressed? Or make music?" and he immediately kicks off with opener 'Tan A Yuh Yaad', a quote by Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holnes! In the song's intro, we can hear Runkus reprimand a studio guest for coughing unabashedly, and the other interludes and intros in the track list are all commentaries on the COVID-19 situation as well.

Song titles like 'The Mask:2nd Wave' or 'Quarantine Slide' require little imagination. For '$$$', a song in which Runkus pleads for a redistribution of the world's wealth, he recycled a fragment from The Fugees' 'If I Ruled The World', and concludes with the soulful 'Make It Breathe', a duet with Tarrus Riley. The title hints at the obligatory wearing of face masks and, of course, is also a nod at the "I can't breathe!" slogan of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Definitely not an album for reggae purists, but in terms of topical relevance, 'IN:SIDE' hits the mark!