Reggae artiste Buju Banton (right) signs his CD for Hype TV's Coco (left) while Dwight Moore of KIA Motors looks on at the launch of his new album, Rasta Got Soul, at the University of the West Indies on Wednesday. - Peta-Gaye Clachar/Staff Photographer

The large audience, including numerous students, which turned up at the Undercroft, University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, on Wednesday evening came for the launch of Buju Banton's latest album, Rasta Got Soul.

They got that and much, much, much more, as Buju was an extremely engaging storyteller in detailing, at length, his entry into music business, early career and subsequent harsh spiritual experiences in Europe in 1993 which led to the landmark Til Shiloh. His observations on himself were sharp and uncompromising ("I am talented in your estimation, but if I did brown I would be more talented. I know who I am in this society."). So was his assessment of appreciation for Jamaican music, saying that he didn't want it to be assessed on the basis of someone who died many years ago, but on "living human beings like me who are working …".

"He (Bob Marley) was one of the most promoted and well promoted. But don't kill our culture with one individual," Buju said.

Buju was also critical of the university students' lack of activism, urging them to get involved "instead a waiting on the JLP and PNP come handpick a few a you to be part a dem elite".

And he got a marriage proposal, to which Buju replied (when the audience had subsided) "my girl is very jealous. She name reggae".

Reggae Poetry course

The Rasta Got Soul launch was presented in association with the university's Department of Literatures in English, host Professor Carolyn Cooper (standing in for department head Dr Anthea Morrison) noting that Buju's lyrics are part of the Reggae Poetry course. Tracii McGregor of Buju's Gargamel Music said that Rasta Got Soul is the label's second album.

Dr Cecil Gutzmore analysed some of Buju Banton's early work, quoting a much younger Buju as saying that he had "come fe run tings fe years and decades and centuries".

"This is a significant songwriter, so his lyrics are literature," Gutzmmore said. And going back to 1993 and the song Good Body, ("And you don't expect too much in a song called Good Body") he pointed out how Buju had written:

"What must I do to get close to you

Should I climb a ladder an paint the sky blue

If I should fall who will catch me

Baby let it be you"

"Eat your heart out William Shakespeare," Gutzmore said, as the audience cheered. Gutzmore said that Buju Banton is a master of distinct and related genres - dancehall deejaying and roots Rasta influenced reggae. There was also mention of Boom Bye Bye, Gutzmore saying "it's not a song I approve of, although I know it is expressing a very strong opinion on ya so".

"He brings into the second phase of his career the necessary elements of the carnal along with the elements of spirituality," Gutzmore said.

Major masterpiece

And he concluded that "since 1995, Buju has had a series of Rasta-inspired, Bible-inspired albums, each a major or approaching major masterpiece", advising all to get Rasta Got Soul.

After the rapt audience had followed colourful threads of his rich musical life to the present, Buju, moving from standing to taking a chair somewhere in the process, spoke on Rasta Got Soul. He said it had been in the making for five or six years and he had replaced nine of the original tracks. "It is a strategic release. It should have been released a couple years ago. The climate was not conducive to an album like this. They would have overlooked it," he said, commenting that "the dancehall momentum was too heavy".

Among the musicians who played on Rasta Got Soul are Nambo Robinson, Chico, Dean Fraser, David Madden, Scully, Flabba Holt, Mitchum Khan and Paul 'Wrongmove' Crossdale.

Collaborations

He said that there are no combinations with Beres Hammond; Wyclef Jean is on Bedtime Story (where a mother has to explain to her child that the man of the house is dead) and he teams with Bunny Rugs on Sense of Purpose.

"This record is geared towards a mature audience," Buju said. And when he was asked who the target market is to Rasta Got Soul, Buju said "everybody … The young, the old, the gay, the lesbian, the obese, the slim".

Cooper said that the launch and Buju's presentation "is a high point that validates the work we have been doing at the university".

At the end, a laughing Buju said "oonu mek me talk till me tiad. Thanks for coming" and there was a standing ovation. And still they wanted more, as they crowded him for autographs.