Words by Jesse Serwer—
If you’ve read LargeUp in the last few months, you must know about Suns of Dub by now. We premiered the crew’s mixtape with Major Lazer, named them to our Artists to Watch list for 2014 and brought them out to perform with The Roots at our annual holiday party with Okayplayer in December. They also figure prominently into our Meditations video series documenting the spiritual core of the burgeoning reggae revival.
Now, Addis Pablo, Ras Jammy and crew have given us their latest release, The Journey to Baltimore, to share. The Baltimore in reference here is not the city in Maryland, but Sly and Robbie’s “Baltimore Dub”, an inspiration for Addis and Jammy, and a favorite among dub enthusiasts. The crew teamed with vocalists Mikey General and Queen Omega to re-envision the dub classic for the three-song EP. Sons of Dub’s Ras Jammy, who produced and conceptualized the record, shares the story behind the release:
We have been working on this project for two years. Shan a Shan, a good link from France, sent over the stems some time before that even, and we mix[ed] it down in our style. Mikey General humbly and generously voiced “Zion I Children” for us, which wasn’t a difficult vocal mix because of his professionalism and experience. That in itself made us take the project a bit more seriously.
Queen Omega followed through some time after with a wicked rough banger, “Life as a Soldier,” which we previewed on our mixtape with Major Lazer. We would be working closely with both artists to get many more projects of the ground. The “Journey to Baltimore” dub mix is a blend of both vocal tracks with some melodica from Addis Pablo… it’s a heavier, electronic-influenced upbeat
Each track is over 5 minutes long, and incorporated the vocal and dub track in one, something we just sort just allowed to flow, as we were mixing in an effort not to limit self or the music, but also because we truly enjoy the classic “Baltimore” played by Sly & Robbie…and it was fun to experiment with.
Stream The Journey to Baltimore below, buy it on iTunes here, and Amazon here, and look out for the Suns of Dub documentary on LargeUp this Thursday.