Burro Banton – Buro

1983, CSA Records

In this episode of BIM KILL HIM I attempt to look at “Buro” by Burro Banton with fresh eyes after listening to it more times than any other record. I was hooked on this album years before I even knew what dancehall was. I came across it and assumed that this Jamaican fella had the crazy idea to adapt a rapping style into reggae music. Which is much the opposite of what actually happened, but anyway, much later I was very glad to discover that Burro was not that special at all, just one of many artists in a whole flourishing genre.

And that is how Burro seems to sit in dancehall history. ‘Not that special’. What’s special about Burro? He has the biggest nose of any reggae artist (according to Charlie Chaplin, “big like twelve rubbish pan”), good style and stamina on the mic, but not too much lyrics. Burro Banton is probably the only artist of his caliber to be such a fierce lyrics pirate; most of the lyrics in most of his tunes can be traced back to someone else. Being a Burro fan first and a dancehall listener second, I spent many years in denial, arguing to myself that many of the matching lyrics from other artists came out in the same year as Burro’s tunes, so there was no guarantee that HE was stealing lyrics and not THEM – but eventually pattern recognition got the better of me and I was forced to concede that I admired a lyrics pirate.

But when I say “most of his tunes”, I talk about his 90s and 21st century output, whereas the lyrics on “Buro” are mostly original. And if you know Burro from his other work, “Buro” will give you whiplash in a lot more ways than this. His voice is SMOOTH, and young, and inexperienced. You can even hear him run out of breath in Jolly Bus:

I pay sixty cents, wanna drive three stage, and dem pay seventy cents upon the express bus

And make the grave mistake of singing on Out A Hand:

And every time she see me, want fe hear a love song
My darling, please remember
When we say that we will never part
But now you’re leaving, taking another
Leaving me standing with a broken heart
A ay ay ay, say
Just be cool, boom, just be nice

It’s also 1983 human riddims, medium tempo and medium energy, played by the Hi-Times band and produced by Junjo. What makes this record really stand out from its contemporaries is that the riddims are mostly original – the only ones I recognise are the Everybody Bawling riddim on Modulla and the Hey Mr. Babylon riddim (from Volcano for Don Carlos) on Stumbling Block.

By the way, humor me for a moment and listen to the opening section of the dub to Noah’s Ark by Eek-A-Mouse, also produced by Junjo:

Then listen to the opening few seconds of Tenament:

What did he do that for? It comes out of nowhere. And it sounds about twice as bad under the new mix. What a wacky dude. Anyway back to talking about Burro.

There is always delight and joy to be had in hearing someone finding their musical footing, and more often than not that seems to be the era where they really shine the best. Whether that’s true for Burro will be a point of contention for fans, but despite the funny & embarrassing excerpts above, the quality of this record certainly matches the pattern. Many records, even good records, seem to fade into the background as ‘just another album’ but “Buro” stands out in early 80s dancehall. Junjo is totally in his comfort zone, doing some of his best work as producer, and voicing the most creative work from up-and-coming youth who would later become a mainstay veteran. Most tunes are better described as ‘irie’ than anything else, with a couple harder cuts in the mix (Tenament, Better Than The Rest and especially If Me A Chat).

If Me A Chat is one of the precursor cuts that later evolved into Burro’s super hit Boomwadis, and all of the versions of this tune are great. See also the single Non Stop on the Answer riddim, also out in 1983, with a much more confident voice. But best of all is Modulla (modeler) at the end. Ending a set with the Everybody Bawling riddim is such a good move, which is why Junjo did the exact same thing with “The Outlaw” by Josey Wales in the same year, and Modulla is just a perfect storm of all the right ingredients that make dancehall great. It is as ‘dancehall’ as dancehall gets without giving up an ounce of ‘reggae’. And featuring one of my favourite lyrics, you never hear about the latest attack, and if you don’t know what that means, then go listen to it and find out for yourself.

Bim count: 3
My picks: Jolly Bus, Stumbling Block, Better Than The Rest, If Me A Chat, Modulla