Legendary Jamaican artists Sly & Robbie are set to release a new album titled “Red Hills Road” on May 21, 2021 in the United States, available on digital and vinyl.
Red Hills Road is named after the street that was a breeding ground of music during the 1960s and 1970s, with up to a dozen clubs featuring live bands. On Red Hills Road, Sly & Robbie worked exclusively with their longtime Jamaican musical companions: Lenky Marsden, Robbie Lyn, Dean Fraser, Ansel Collins, and many other great Jamaican musicians.
A pre-release single titled ‘Linstead Market’ is available as a music video. It is an instrumental piece that highlights the Saturday outdoor markets in rural Jamaica. ‘Linstead Market’ features a mix of dance hall reggae and kumina.
“I have a love for instrumentals” says Sly Dunbar “and so we’ve been doing just that, and especially on a dancehall beat. There were lots of hit ska and rocksteady instrumentals, but in the dancehall era, not so many. I was just cutting tracks. When I listen to dancehall, there’s nothing exciting happening. So I started to search for something different that people can listen to. I even go back to kumina and mento on tracks like ‘Linstead Market’ and’ Coronation Market’.”
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Author: World Music Central News Room
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