It is a truism of life that is often lost on the young. Marley and Brown are revered in Jamaica, and on the world stage, Brown especially by the reggae cognoscenti, and there is more than a hint of Marley in Dre’s voice, both Bob and Stephen. Michael Jackson, Buju Banton, Bob Marley, Al Green, Dennis Brown – a wide variety of music,” Dre continues.
“I was born and raised in Kingston and I heard all kinds of music as a child. I had a passion for music from an early age and Buju and the Marleys were big influences on me.” Banton’s presence in the community was something that was almost taken for granted and Dre says that “I would see Buju all the time in the neighborhood. These same streets produced Dancehall legends Buju Banton and Red Dragon, the former having a significant impact on Dre’s artistic development, as he has had on many Jamaican artists. In the video for the song, Dre walks the streets of the neighborhood where he grew up, the Red Hills Road section of Kingston, accompanied by children and other residents of the area. That mixtape yielded the quietly anthemic title cut, a gentle, hip hop-influenced track, which extols the virtues of Rastafarian values and culture. It is perhaps no accident then, that reggae artist Dre Island is releasing his official, debut album seven years after his first collection of songs, Rastafari Way, hit the airwaves. Seven is an auspicious number, so much so that even people who are not devout attach propitious significance to its occurrence in the ordinary aspects of life.
From there, the number seven reappears, in contexts large and small, instrumental to concepts of divinity, as well as to detailed codes of personal behavior. The first book of the Hebrew Bible describes how God created the world in six days, and on the seventh, surveyed what He had created and rested. For example, even non-believers are familiar with the story of creation in Genesis. Social media enhances the difficulty of staying atop the pop culture firmament and, before you know it, an artist who was up today, tomorrow fades into obscurity, a victim of the relentless forces of the pop culture market place, Darwin’s evolutionary theory writ large on the cultural stage of capitalism.įor those who believe in such things, however, the number seven has divine significance, particularly in the Old Testament. Trends, styles, tastes, and popularity divide, replicate and morph at an exhausting pace and even the greatest pop artists struggle to keep up. Seven years is an eternity in popular music.