yardie's reggae collection - artist pageCHUCK
FENDA
BETTER DAYS * * * * 
2005 - Fifth Element Records - studio - discs: 1Chuck "Fenda" Fender comes all along the great Roots reinassence that occured during the first years of 2000 and brough in 2005 some couple of great debut albums from a bunch of young and very confident sing-jays and singers. To name the most important, or it would be better to say those that I like more, these are the bwoys: Fenda himself, Fantan Mojah, Richie Spice and I Wayne. This set, Fenda's debut, is for sure a strong product: musically and lyrically. On the musical / arrangements side Fifth Element brought some of the hard skilled musician on the scene today to play here. On the lyrics side Fenda is very confident about what is going wrong now in Jamaica and he do not esitate to express it. Quite directly too. This is for sure the result of his process of moving from a sing-jay easy way to a real conscious approach. The mood and the sound of the record is quite coherent. Here there is almost only pure tough modern Roots. Then there is Lover's too with the acoustic "Oh My Lord" and with the mellow and slow "Show Love" featuring Luciano that really shines. As you know I am for the former and I must remember at least the name of the strongest tracks: "Ruff Out Deh", "Can't Stop Try", "The Prayer", "Survival", the beautiful (!) "See Love", "Cyaan Control" with Richie Spice (a great collaboration), "Jah Sight", "Poor People Cry". "I Swear" need a few words more. This is the "killer" tune of the album, and for sure one of the best in the above mentioned period. It was already a hit and of course is here again (Play it as loud as you can... trust me). The set closes with "Murderer" which was a hit before too. This is very nice album which even if it contains sixteen (!) songs stands strong from the beginning to the end.
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