3. Horace Andy “Ital is Vital”
There’s such an earnest quality to Horace Andy’s voice—as if he’s singing from some higher plane—that makes it tough to disagree with anything the man says. It’s likely then that he was successful with his mission on 1974’s “Ital is Vital” (also known simply as “Ital Vital,” and also released in a deejay version with Jah Bull). The track finds the gentle-voiced crooner urging his woman to follow an Ital diet, over the ethreal Rock a Bye Woman riddim. It’s a song about the livity gained from going ital, not the food that brings it to you, but we can think of no more convincing endorsement of a dietary regimen in reggae, or any genre. The track continues to bear fruit, most recently appearing on and lending its name to a recent mixtape from Jamaican selector Yaadcore’s Reggae Aroma series). —Jesse Serwer