Rebel music: Jamaican artist is jammin’
Rebel music: Jamaican artist is jammin’
A dozen tracks into her brilliant new album, Tanya Stephens gets deep. After a little girl-power boasting, some sexy love songs, and a couple should-be-classic drinking ditties, the Jamaican singer and toaster takes on the church. On You Keep Looking Up, Stephens sets out the ”chronicles according to Tanya” — a feminist, pantheistic version of One Love. On the mellow grooves of Come a Long Way, she aims her barbs at politics: ”So we come a long way from picking cotton,” she celebrates, then switches from conscious to righteous: ”Many never thought they’d live to see the day when Bush pick Rice/ But if all you’ve become is another house nigga, baby tell me was it worth all the sacrifice.” Then, on Do You Still Care, Stephens takes on the legacy of colonialism: racism and homophobia.