Terry Lynn And Her Kingston Logic

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMJGIrtLq7s&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b]

In a pretty great confluence of import importance and shat on toss-offs, Terry Lynn and Swiss-based Canadian production partner Russel Hergert took Daft Punk’s much-maligned Human After All track “technologic” and re-vamped it as a populist anthem for Jamaica’s impoverished, exploited and fed up underclass. By replacing software advert ad-libs with weapon readying directives, the original’s cheap, sony-commercial baiting hooks become a dissatisfied reveler’s checklist for starting a violent revolt.

Lynn apparently started as a dancehall artist trying to make it with industry assigned gender roles, singing what she now considers to be de rigueur female dancehall tropes i.e. raunchy songs about fucking, but every music industry being a competitive churning mechanism it wasn’t enough to feed her and her kid. Some years ago Hergert was milling around Studio One brewing up tracks with legendary reggae producer Coxsone Dodd, and her cool-hand fixture in the background, casually tossing off lines, naturally beckoned an inquiry. Point blank asked by Hegert if she’d witnessed a murder, she began to lay down a lyrical macrocosm of the destitute and perpetually screwed-over country she lived in. Soon both of them were pouring their life-savings into what eventually became Kingstonlogic 1.0 + 2.0. The latter, released last year, doesn’t sacrifice gyration-worthy good times for fiery calls to arms, but instead the two modes of discourse complement each other in a way that destroys notions of grim-faced politicking. It’s both a knock to the general horrors and a way to engage them without making the matter innocuous.

Check her out at http://www.myspace.com/terrylynnkingstonlogic

(Bonus: In the Rickard Bros. directed video for System, a meet your meat style visit to a local slaughterhouse is used to highlight the veritable meat industry Jamaica’s economic despondency turns its population into. As the video notes, a two day shoot covered seven animals losing their lives. During those same two days, nine Jamaicans lost theirs.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9PAuzjcxGM&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b]