As soon as I hit play on All Rebel Rockers, I was worried – this didn’t sound anything like Michael Franti & Spearhead. A mild sheen of perspiration instantly appeared on my forehead. With their first release, 1994’s Home, Spearhead established themselves as a lively, deeply socially conscious rap group who knew their way around rock and funk to boot. 2001’s Stay Human was when the group fully hit their stride, presenting a commentary on the death penalty and the human spirit in a series of excellent tracks that somehow made it cool to be caring about that ‘love’ stuff. Their releases between then and now have all been from a similar mould – all a little hip hop, a little pop, and above all music with a message.

 

So when those first few seconds of All Rebel Rockers blared through the headphones, I got a little concerned. The first track, ‘Rude Boys Back in Town’, kicks off with a straight-out reggae beat – slow plodding bass, shaking percussion, complete with ‘a-whoa-whoa-whoas’ strung over the top. It’s only about thirty seconds in when Franti begins rapping his first verse that it all starts makes sense – it is Spearhead. The sweat spontaneously evaporated.

 

 

Rather than the rap-and-pop format that’s been pretty reliable for Franti & co. until now, All Rebel Rockers has a distinct reggae flavour – more than that, it is a reggae album. It’s a gambit that succeeds in a surprising way, most surprising because it’s so successful that it seems strange Spearhead haven’t tried it before. The fusion of Franti’s voice and Spearhead’s obvious affection for the genre fits like they’ve been singing out of Kingston all their lives.

 

‘Life in the City’ is the album’s stand out, and represents everything that’s great about Spearhead and reggae. You get a dose of Franti’s characteristically great lyrical observations (“listenin’ in on your phone calls / still no politician got enough balls / lining the people up against the wall / when the truth comes out all hell will call / and someday Guantanamo will fall”), alongside an uplifting and infectious beat from the band. It’s infectious, and the sound of a group who know absolutely what they’re doing and how to get you swaying your shoulders without realising.

 

The album becomes stronger and stronger as it progresses. ‘Say Hey (I Love You)’ is so energetic it feels like a live freestyle, ‘High Low (feat. Zap Mama)’ chills things out towards the tail end through hushed vocals and instrumentation, and the subdued closer ‘Have a Little Faith’ is easily on par with anything off Stay Human. Where the album lacks is in allowing some of the more complex raps that made Home so endearing (and enduring) – there’s nothing here to rival, for instance, the powerful personal experience presented in ‘Positive’. You get a taste of it in ‘Hey World (Don’t Give Up Version)’ where Franti sings about his frustration with war and injustice, but overall this compelling lyrical side to Spearhead is noticeably absent.

 

All Rebel Rockers’reggae flavour is probably the cause of the shifted emphasis onto repetitive choruses and instrumentation. But, strangely, even in this format Spearhead are just as successful in delivering their core message, which has from the outset always focussed on expounding the beauty of the human spirit. This time around  though, the message is communicated across the entire scope of music that Spearhead produce rather than relying almost exclusively on Franti’s raps – and because of this, All Rebel Rockers feels like its transcends just being a Michael Franti vehicle and becomes the fullest, most uplifting experience they’ve ever created.