The Real Revolution

It’s 20 years since the American filmmakers Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke founded Playing for Change, hitting the streets with a mobile recording studio and their cameras to make the award-winning documentary, A Cinematic Discovery of Street Music. Since then the project has developed into a house band, travelling the world recording and filming musicians, creating the 2009 album Songs Around the World and several more since.

The latest was recorded by a core group of musicians from ten different countries, much of it at the Tuff Gong studio in Jamaica with members of Damian Marley’s band playing a prominent role. Unsurprisingly, a classic roots reggae vibe permeates throughout, but with plenty of smart twists on the theme. The voices of the Congolese singers Mermans Mosengo and Jason Tamba grace the title-track over a skanking Wailers-inspired groove and there’s an inventive cover of Toots and the Maytals’ ‘54-46 That’s My Number’ with slide guitar and Hammond B3. Elsewhere the reggae is fused with a swaying Latin groove on ‘Me Pierdo’, written by Pierre Minetti, New Orleans jazz on ‘Right Foot Forward’, sweet soul music on ‘Run’ and African rhythms on ‘Bwanya’, before the album ends somewhat oddly with the country ballad ‘When the Music Comes’.