Search - Peter Broggs :: Progressive Youth

This debut set demonstrates the durability of a relatively unknown artist and the enduring appeal of reggae's early, unsophisticated instrumental tracks, motored by foundation bass lines and squishy one-drop drum beats, and accented by the rhythmic slashes of organ and guitar chords and the occasional idiosyncratic sound effect. Broggs, a Rastaman from Western Kingston who was an '80s fixture on Negril's 10-mile-long beach, covers the usual Rasta-reggae concerns, tipping dangerously close at times towards cliché in lyrics that extol--as so many others before and since--Jah's omnipotence, the need to give Him thanks and praises, the folly of envy, African repatriation, and other guidelines for positive living and spiritual ease. Likewise, his clear, bright tenor (located squarely in the wonderful "youth man" tradition that was so popular in the '70s and early '80s) occasionally slips off-key. Yet, in a weird reversal of the usual poetic and musical strategies, those imperfections merely add to the overall effect of artless charm. --Elena Oumano