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Mavado - Mr. Brooks . . . A Better Tomorrow
| Billboard |
| Mavado has been acclaimed as one of reggae music's most influential new artists since 2006, when his street single "Weh Dem a Do" gained major airplay worldwide. On his sophomore album, the MC continues to prove he is on top of his game. For the street anthem "Life of a G," Mavado delivers hardcore lyrics like, "Dis is wat the gangster life is like . . . me hay [hide] mi gun since mi inna classroom," over a violin-based, theatrical beat. While he continues to boost his street cred on tracks like "Gangster Don't Play" and "Real Killer," he balances the set with the regretful "Jailhouse," which finds him whining about not wanting to go back to jail, and "Overcome," which samples the protest song "We Shall Overcome." —Mariel Concepcion...full text |
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| Spin |
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Gangsta personas have short shelf lives. Snoop Dogg: the only set he's believably rolling with these days is the PTA. and who's still afraid of big, bad 50 Cent? Post–"In Da Club," he became more of a thug cartoon than the genuine article. But on his stellar second album, David "Mavado" Brooks -- the Kingston-born artist hyped as having more street cred than Biggie and Tupac combined -- has lost none of the edge that made him dancehall's latest commercial savior. Backed by stripped-down beats, Mavado "singjays" -- a style that's part chatting, part crooning -- in his trademark tear-soaked voice, lamenting gunshots and demanding them (shades of the Tupac paradox). On his debut album, he did more of the latter, but here he ups the gravitas with elegies saturated in Biblical references: the haunting "Don't Worry," the hymnlike "On the Rock" (which inspired Jay-Z to drop a verse on its remix), and "Overcome," a stunning cry against Jamaican poverty and crime. Even warning an enemy that he'll be laying "in a tomb" ("Life of a G"), Mavado never quite glorifies bullets and bravado....full text |
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| Guardian |
| for Life, introduced David Brooks to the world as a tormented dancehall visionary. On its followup, his eerie elegies again strike to the heart of the Jamaican gothic. Key to this aesthetic are Mavado's desolate vocal tones, suffused with conflict and turmoil. Drifting over bleak, minor-key arrangements like a spectral prophet, he finds salvation in swelling gospel chorales, blending their hope with his anguish to superb effect at the hymnal climax of On the Rock. Elsewhere, he works himself into a frenzy as bells toll on the martial Gangsta Nuh Play. A Better Tomorrow is an unrepentantly solemn listen, but, as the title suggests, there is light at the end of the tunnel: Overcome is a shimmering, opulent tale of hope....full text |
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