General Trees & General Degree – Battle Of The Generals

199X, King Dragon

At the cusp of rubadub era and ragga era we have here a FAIRLY UNREMARKABLE clash LP featuring two Generals, the unarguably more accomplished General Trees versus the dynamic, exciting, gimmicky newcomer General Degree. The specific date is lost to time but I would wager this is 1990, or 1991 at the latest.

The generals go punch for punch with General Degree opening with a WIMPY LEFT HOOK to Mr. Tree, sporting Whin’ In, and at the engineering table some freak decided to keep pushing the Whin’ In button because you hear that soundbite several times a second throughout. All the girls whiiiine in. Another time them whiiiine out. You have heard it a billion times before and it would be an unremarkable and forgettable tune if its name were not brute-forced into your memory in this way.

Then the big man himself Gen. Tree comes right back with a FLIMSY JAB to the face of Degree with the mediocre Plan, well in Tree character as a family-planning tune, but with a decidedly lame cadence that is not carried by its riddim. And at the engineering table SOME FREAK decided to keep pushing the ‘You Hear!’ button and you hear that soundbite several times a second throughout. Yes I heard you the first time brother.

THEN GENERAL DEGREE COMES STRAIGHT TO GEN. TREE(‘s) FACE WITH ONE MASSIVE UPPERCUT, THE BIG TUNE Lambada, AND GENERAL TREES IS DOWN FOR THE COUNT because this tune GOES FUCKO MODE!! Flung upon the riddim from Frontline by Nardo Ranks (also out 1990 on King Dragon), this is lyrically just a dance tune – Lambada is a Brazilian dance, and the group Kaoma had just put out their Lambada tune in 1989, so that was surely making the rounds and likely inspired this. Tampee Vibrations put this on YouTube to a Mr. Bean video. Now I understand that this is not the Lambada dance but we forgive him because the moves are swagged out regardless. A classic YouTube up. Check it out.

The Frontline riddim is just excellent and it wouldn’t take too much to make a hit song on it, but Lambada is just so catchy that I put it on every morning for a month straight in 2018 just after moving into a new apartment in a new country. Just hearing the siren synth at the beginning takes me right back, I can smell the couch, the beer, the spicy takeout clams, the thick summer air and all.

But you likely don’t care so much about me and my smellings, you care what the one General Trees has to say about this, and HE IS BACK ON HIS FEET TO MAKE A LEFT AND A RIGHT TO THE HEAD OF DEGREE, returning with Gambler which remains my number one favourite tune of all time by any artist ever since I first heard it in – you guessed it – 2018. Nothing showcases Trees better than this one tune, which is a shame because it is very obscure and not remembered by many. I at least have never heard it mentioned by anybody. Gambler is pure storytelling, AND it is a horse tune (Scorpio brand), AND it is a story with a moral (Trees brand), AND it is also flung on the Frontline riddim with a much more confident cadence that can tan good pon two feet. Lambada got its own embed, so it is only fair I return the favor:

Also check the lyrics on Genius as you listen along. Transcribed by yours truly. My Freak’n Goodness there is a lot going on here. The shattered optimism of the gambler, the humility and self-deprecating humor, the way the jockey just a wiggle and a woggle on the back, the way the horse foot a go cutty cutty cop cop, the way the public admonishes him and the way he indignantly tells the woman to mind her own business before just telling her how much he lost anyway. And as he does so, he just about runs out of air in his lungs, but commits all the way to the line and it actually comes out better than if he had taken a bigger breath ahead of time.

THEN GENERAL DEGREE COMES IN LIKE A WILTED BLADE OF GRASS doing the WORST cover of Another Day In Paradise by Phil Collins that you have heard all day (Think Twice). The riddim sounds like tweety birds over a twangy synth walking bassline and then some ragga tresillo snares, which sounds terrible, but it isn’t, but the song is terrible for most reasons that you could think of for a song to be terrible. Singing style, not deejay style. Down the octave from the original. Total disagreement with its riddim, which was already not in agreement with itself. The same riddim is touched up for Bible And Key where some freak behind the engineering table keeps pressing the ‘Key’ button, thanks very much for that, and then in Something Wrong something is DEFINITELY WRONG because there is no vocal track. To me that is hilarious. I wonder if this was a deliberate joke by Lord Zeljko the producer, as in ‘something is wrong because Degree only did four tunes’, or if there was actually supposed to be a tune called Something Wrong and then the vocal track was lost or maybe someone forgot to put it on or maybe it just sucked so bad that they canned it.

THEN GENERAL TREES WITH SOME MORE BLADES OF GRASS TO WIPE ON DEGREES’ NOSE dropping Chalawa and Hold It Down and Degree returns with a soft, delicately feminine slap to Trees’ cheek with Cash AND THE CROWD GOES MILD because none of these tunes are really captivating at all. The Trees cuts are decent I suppose. I mean it’s still Trees but it’s not Trees at his best or second best or third best. Burro Banton once asked a very poignant question, “Who A The General Now“, and this had already decidedly been General Trees for some time before this LP dropped, but just in case you needed some confirmation, there you go. All in all this is a very stupid album. I shall give it the ‘good’ rating but that is a stretch.

My picks: Lambada and Gambler, obviously, if you read the post.
Bim count: 0