Lloyd Brown is celebrating the release of his 12th studio albu
m, ‘Brownie Points’. It’s his third release on the emergent Cousins Records label, the first being the highly acclaimed ‘Silver’. The track getting the most airplay on the album is an ode to his fans called ‘Full Appreciation’. But when you put on your Back 2 Da Future glasses and scan the tracklisting you can’t help but exclaim damn!!!!! when you see track number 5, for there lies the legend ‘It Takes Two’ Featuring Sylvia Tella and wait for it........ Colonel Mite!Sylvia Tella needs no introduction to Lovers Rock fans as she was the same queen who gave us the classic ‘Spell’ and was touted as the female Garnett Silk when she hit the come-back trail with a string of hits including ‘Mother Nature’.
The Deejay addition to this three-the-hard-way, Colonel Mite, has been M.I.A. (Missing In Action) for nearly twenty years! Back in 1988/9 Col. Mite & the Dancehall singer, Frighty had THE biggest record around on their hands in ‘Life’. The track was soooooo large that it scraped the UK pop charts and was one of the tracks responsible for Dancehall becoming known as ‘Ragga’ as Mite’s Deejay chorus went “Raggamuffin Love, come gimme de Raggamuffin Love.....”. London filtered it through the cockney machine and wound up calling the whole genre “Ragga”.
Frighty released a few solo efforts afterwards that never really lit up the place and Col. Mite became a one-hit wonder for want of a better phrase, as we never heard from him again until he found himself with a mutual friend to Lloyd Brown. Mr Brown and brethren had a reasoning session with Mite as any self-respecting Rastaman often does and it all ended up with Mite’s voice being committed to tape (as far as we can tell) for the first time in almost 20 years!!!!!!
Figure 1: Col. Mite pictured Left
Like the old Bob Hoskins British Telecom advert strap line went - “It’s good to talk!”
(Back 2 Da Future is broadcast on www.playvybz.com on Saturdays 7pm-9pm and repeated throughout the week)
Archives
This week in 1984 Maxi ‘Chart Buster’ Priest was leading the pack on the Reggae charts with his Lovers Rock classic, ‘Should I’. His former Saxon sound stablemate, Smiley Culture was at number 2 with the ground-breaking ‘Police Officer’, and Barrington Levy’s much sampled ‘Here I Come’ was at number 3. (The Archive selection is broadcast on Choice 96.9/107.1FM as part of Natty B’s Reggae Chart Show Sundays 10pm-12am)Reggae Number 1’s This week.....
D’Angel ‘Stronger’ - Jamaica Music Countdown (Reggae)
Har
ry Toddler ‘More Money’ – Jamaica Music Countdown (Dancehall)Keith & Tex ft: Shabba Ranks ‘Duku Duku (remix)’ - Germany
Mavado ‘So Special’ – BBC 1xtra/France
Serani ‘No Games’ - US Virgin Islands
Sizzla ‘Crucial Time’– Choice FM, London
Stevie Face ‘Tell it Like it Is’ - New York/South Florida
Sugar Roy, Conrad Crystal & Gyptian ‘Jah Jah See Dem A Come’ – New Style (Birmingham)
