| During
the 1980's the "Compact Disc" (CD)
was introduced to the public. A public, used
to vinyl records that had a time limit of
somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes. A
public, that was now confronted with a new
medium that could easily carry two vinyl
albums on one disc.
Prices were kind of double, too. Today,
this is the other way around, as "vinyl
fetishists" become a rare species who
will gladly pay extra money in order to be
able to use the old technique in order to
play their music.
Anyway, the thing was that many CD's
would indeed carry two vinyl albums, making
it more attractive to actually buy the disc.
Prince Jammy's DUB CULTURE is such a
re-issue. And by looking at the price
(around 5 dollars), it can hardly be made
more attractive.
Originally, the albums were called
"UHURU IN DUB" and "OSBOURNE
IN DUB". And they are really different.
The first one is unmistakably Roots Rockers,
where the second one is unmistakably in Rub
a Dub style.
 UHURU
IN DUB is the DUB counterpart of Black
Uhuru's album "Black Sounds Of
Freedom". It wasn't the first Black
Uhuru release, but pretty close. And -as far
as we can check- the only Prince Jammy
production of the vocal harmony group.
"Black Sounds Of Freedom" is in
itself highly recommended, that's why the
Dubroom already reviewed that album. UHURU
IN DUB takes the vibe of the album, and
significantly adds to it.
Long, long echo's and skillful use of the
Spring Reverb are only two elements of
Prince Jammy's great work on this one.
Really, Prince Jammy at his finest.
The contrast with OSBOURNE IN DUB is
significant, though. There's not much heavy
dubbing going on, where the music is
obviously recorded on much more
sophisticated recording equipment than UHURU
IN DUB.
 Maybe
it has to do with what Prince Jammy said
about newer hardware. In "The Rough
Guide To Reggae", he states that it's
much more difficult to create a good DUB mix
with mixing boards that have more
press-buttons than sliders. And the
"newer" mixing boards really had
that disadvantage.
So, if this album would only contain
OSBOURNE IN DUB, we would probably not have
placed this review online. There are a
couple of fine tunes, and even the brilliant
"JAH IS WITH YOU" should at least
be heard once by every serious collector of
DUB music. But overall, there's not much
heavy mixing going on and the tunes itself
are in need for that heavy mixing when they
do not come with full vocals.
But, since UHURU IN DUB is such an
excellent album, and since the price is only
about 5 dollars, we do highly recommend this
double-album-on-one-disc for your collection
of good and better (DUB) Reggae.
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