Album Review: Inna De Yard

2017’s The Soul Of Jamaica was the very essence of a good idea properly executed: round up a few Jamaican heroes like Ken Boothe and Cedric Myton of The Congos and put them in a room with some of the newer names in roots - Derajah and Var - to see what might happen. It wasn’t broken, so they haven’t tried to fix it, they’ve just thrown a few more names in to help out on this paean to their shared musical heritage.

That room sits in the Blue Mountains in Stony Hill, just outside Kingston, and you can feel the good vibes from here. Boothe has another go at his massive 1974 hit ‘Everything I Own’, Myton revisits ‘Row Fisherman’ and Winston McAnuff - also rather splendidly known as The Electric Dread - digs out his own ‘Malcolm X’, perhaps better known from Dennis Brown, but there are surprises too. Horace Andy turns up to have a good go at Bill Wither’s ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ and former I-Three Judy Mowatt delivers a strident take on her own ‘Black Woman’, first recorded back in 1979. Perhaps best of all, Boothe offers ‘Speak Softly Love’, a Kingstonian take on the love theme from The Godfather you didn’t know you needed. Derajah and Var give a good account of themselves too, on ‘Tribute To My Sister’ and the lovely ‘Live Good’.

It’s mostly an acoustic affair with some beautiful piano and elements of the Nyabinghi drum tradition – three different drums, bass, funde and keteh, playing against each other – carrying that immortal offbeat groove. When the sun is shining and thoughts turn to sitting outside with something cold in your hand, this is the record you should be playing.

https://open.spotify.com/album/1PpbEpVgYwqF8vWmA2XtoK?si=fl7vXJmJRM-WTF8bLJig0g