The 77-y-o stays true to his roots, but experiments with trap dancehall beats–

BY Sade Gardner/Gleaner Staff Reporter – –

Singer Max Romeo has release his 45th album – ‘World of Ghouls’.

“I’m a very silent person,” singer Max Romeo tells The Gleaner. “I’m from the silent generation where if you talk too much, you lose your life. The majority of us from that generation aren’t alive today.”

But the 77-year-old is far from silent on his latest and 45th album, World of Ghouls. The album cover art sees an imperially cloaked Romeo elevated above the ground, surrounded by hideous bloodsucking critters. Armed with his ankh, he remains unscathed and beams, or as the title track best describes it, he’s walking in the light Jah shines on him.

“This world is full of demons; I’ve been watching these ghouls all my life before the pandemic,” he said. “Matter of fact, the pandemic is nothing new. We have all different types of pandemic. One of the wickedest pandemic we have in Jamaica right now is the gun pandemic. Before that, I noticed the change in society. I notice colonialism rooted because of Christianity. We still uphold that colonial aspect of life that humans should try to shake in this time.”

Interestingly, Are You Coming Again, one of 12 tracks on the album, has been getting the side-eye from folks who believe Romeo has “switched sides”. The song, which he started writing in 1976 for the Reggae Broadway musical of which he was part, plays on the Christian belief that Jesus is coming soon. Though the Rastafarian belts, “if ever a time we need you, it’s now,” he said the song is misunderstood.

“That question should be asked long before now because for 400 years or more many generations waiting on a scene like that: travelling on clouds, the son of man appears and Jah will blow the trumpet and rae, rae, rae … I’m asking where all these things disappear to. They don’t understand and feel I’ve gone on the Jesus bandwagon, which is far from the truth.”

This aside, World of Ghouls has been getting commendation from fans not just for its lyrical currency, but new sounds. Romeo retains his reggae, roots and dub aesthetic on offerings like Disgrace, his plea to women to love themselves and not conform to the “disgraces” of skin bleaching and revealing adornment. He also finesses trap dancehall beats courtesy of his 22-year-old son Azizzi Romeo, who produced the album.

“We both figured that we could give it a little of that flavor to attract the young generation since it’s their genre of music, and I’m still in the business, so why not touch base with them? I’m a songwriter, and my son is a songwriter too, so both of us sat down and conceptualized the whole album.”

UNCERTAIN TIMES

Azzizi is also a featured artiste on the album, as well as Romeo’s other children: Xana Romeo and rapper Lil Rolee. Kick Back bears the ultimate trappy framework and is about maintaining a sense of control in a time when things are uncertain.

“That was a very exciting song to record ‘cause I’m saying you can’t go out, so what do you do? You stay home, get yourself a six-pack, and if you’re into weed like me, get yourself a ‘big head’ and relax. Don’t let what’s happening in the world get too much a part of you.”

This year makes 56 years since he’s been in the music business, and Romeo says he’s seen it all. As for the state of the industry today, he said, “If the French people didn’t take it up in the early 2000s coming down, we would totally lose it. France and the rest of Europe enhance the music and put it where it is today, and it is much bigger than the Jamaican people would imagine.”

Though he is concerned about the explicit lyrical content in some of today’s music, he does not believe “the madness” that dancehall has killed reggae.

However, “Dancehall don’t leave Jamaica yet. I tour the world, and I can tell you.”

Romeo’s last album, Words from the Brave, was released in 2019.