Mista Savona Presents Havana Meets Kingston

It's ‘Chan Chan’ again, Jim, but not as we know it… This time the Cuban staple song gets a reggae riddim – under the aegis of Australian reggae and dancehall producer Mista Savona, who was inspired by the Buena Vista Project to assemble more Jamaican and Cuban luminaries than you could shake a stick at. Recorded in Havana's celebrated EGREM studios and powered by the likes of Sly & Robbie, the mélange is somewhat arbitrary at times, and certainly not as seamless as the recent Gypsy Cuban project. Tracks like ‘100 Pounds of Collie’, ‘Dubwise’, the Ernest Ranglin feature ‘410 San Miguel’ and the majestic ‘Row Fisherman Row’ are fundamentally terrific slices of reggae rather than innovative fusions – but who's quibbling? The Cuban contingent get a convincing look-in on ‘Candela’, ‘La Sitiera’ and the single ‘Carnival’, and the two genres do indeed meld most effectively on a brief ‘Chan Chan’-themed interlude, with Julito Padrón's trumpet playing in a lovely loping Jamaican feel. Featuring excellent musicianship and truly heterogeneous vocals throughout, we should welcome this project for what it is: an excuse to make superior Caribbean music.