Samory I – Revelation

TunUp Squad (All formats)

Text: Volk­er Barsch

With the land­mark album ”Black Gold”, pro­duced by Rory Stonelove, Samory I estab­lished him­self vir­tu­al­ly overnight in 2017 as one of Jamaica’s most impor­tant new roots voic­es. Three years ago, he fol­lowed it up seam­less­ly with the equal­ly strong but styl­is­ti­cal­ly more open-mind­ed Win­ta James pro­duc­tion Strength. For Rev­e­la­tion, the singer once again turns to an accom­plished pro­fes­sion­al: vet­er­an pro­duc­er Clive Hunt, who, togeth­er with younger co-pro­duc­ers Ruel ”Potarice” Ash­bourne and TunUp Squad, show­cas­es him at his very best.

Right from the open­ing track, Samory’s expres­sive vocals car­ry us to ”Zion” over a sparse­ly arranged rid­dim. In his def­i­n­i­tion, Zion is a place com­plete­ly beyond Babylon’s reach.

On ”Let­ter to My Son”, the singer address­es his son Jah­seh – already fea­tured in the cov­er pho­tos of Strength – with the heart­felt advice to rely entire­ly on Jah through­out his life. Gri­ot-inspired vocal pas­sages from Sene­galese mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary artist Baye Gal­lo, com­bined with mantra-like back­ing vocals, cre­ate a deeply med­i­ta­tive atmos­phere.

Equal­ly per­son­al is ”Woe Today”, a lament ded­i­cat­ed to his late moth­er. In his char­ac­ter­is­tic fash­ion, Samory man­ages to rec­on­cile pro­found grief with heal­ing, uplift­ing vocals.

Through­out the rest of the album, his soul­ful tenor once again deliv­ers the emo­tion­al inten­si­ty lis­ten­ers have come to expect. There is des­per­a­tion and strug­gle in this voice, but also an unshak­able aware­ness of his roots and of Word, Sound & Pow­er.

These are the per­fect ingre­di­ents for real­i­ty tunes such as ”Siren”, empow­er­ment anthems like ”Don’t Give Up” and ”Vic­to­ry”, and Jah-direct­ed hymns such as ”High Praise”. Samory turns his atten­tion to the ladies with the explic­it­ly steamy ”Fire Burn­ing”, while tak­ing a far more laid-back approach on the clas­sic lovers’ tune ”Sea­son to Love”, which only drifts slight­ly into cheesy ter­ri­to­ry when the back­ing choir joins in towards the end.

While Black Gold fea­tured no guest artists at all and Strength spot­light­ed mem­bers of the Reg­gae Revival move­ment, Rev­e­la­tion includes a strong col­lab­o­ra­tion with Gram­my-win­ning artist Kez­nam­di on ”Warn­ing”, as well as three appear­ances from top-tier dance­hall artists whose con­tri­bu­tions fit in remark­ably organ­i­cal­ly: Gov­ana on ”Siren”, Agent Sas­co on ”Cruise”, and Chron­ic Law on ”Vic­to­ry”. Of these, ”Siren”, dri­ven by its pump­ing bassline, and ”Vic­to­ry”, with its high­ly catchy, pop-lean­ing cho­rus, seem par­tic­u­lar­ly des­tined for hit sta­tus.

That these com­bi­na­tions work so well is hard­ly sur­pris­ing if one remem­bers ”Life Is Amaz­ing”, Samory’s 2022 gan­ja tune with Chi Ching Ching. In doing so, the Ras­ta singer rein­forces his street cred­i­bil­i­ty while per­haps also con­nect­ing with younger audi­ences. Most impor­tant­ly, though, Rev­e­la­tion suc­ceeds in a high­ly con­vinc­ing way in remain­ing true to its roots foun­da­tion while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly adding a wealth of new dimen­sions to it.

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