skykicking

skykicking on Sizzla:

“Like most ragga DJs, Sizzla has carefully cultivated an inimitable vocal style: a quavery, unpredictable growl-whine, impassioned and strangulated as it struggles to get the words out. It’s this sense of struggle that I find fascinating; not “struggle” in the social/religious sense, but rather the difficulty of verbal expression.”

It is also a struggle at times, against actually holding down a fucking tune. It’s worth checking the link above, because Mr Skykicking makes some excellent thought-provoking points, but I can’t help feeling that Sizzla has missed the boat – buried under 20,000 leagues of generic tunes.

It’s not to say that he hasn’t come up with the goods recently – the “Mama” track on Digital B is excellent and I rediscovered his cut on Mexican yesterday and thought it pretty fine. But… (leaving aside the fiya bun everything content) there is no way you would buy anything by Sizzla on spec these days, not even an album.