Nazarenes: Meditation

This is a wonderful deep dub reggae album from two Eritrean-Ethiopian brothers living in Sweden. One of them does more singing than the other, but Meditation is absolutely a junction of two people, not a showcase for a single superstar showstopper, and thus they’re an interesting contrast to the known names of African reggae, the Lucky Dubes and Alpha Blondys. The lead singer has a way of letting his voice linger such as at the end of the album when he asks us to, “Love Jah, up above,” dwelling on the word “above” to say by implication, “Oh my friends even that vague location is dear to me because it contains the thing I adore”. There is much Loving Jah and Going Down Babylon, but there are more eccentric lyrics as well — outstandingly “Food”, a famine awareness number in which they chant, “We need food, food, food, food, food” with a vehemence that states: Hunger.