Perfect Giddimani – World Peace

The legendary Perfect Giddimani has recently returned with a brand-new track. This time, it sees him go back to a classic Roots Reggae sound – but the subject matter is bang up-to-date.

World Peace, released via Earth Strong Productions, sees Giddimani take things back to a classic vibe. The production from Father Ralph at Earth Strong is clean, crisp, and tidy – evocative of the golden days of Reggae. Recording and mixing comes from Trainline Records – who have been making name for themselves recently (including a forthcoming track with Dexta Daps). The mastering shows keen attention to detail, especially across the backing vocal and horn lines. Then, the arrangement is slick and pleasing.

The track consists of classic Reggae staples. Guitars casually skank in the background, ebbing and flowing across the track – while the keys run a bubble rhythm in the mid-range of their register. Both combine to give World Peace that authentic, stuttering Reggae flavour. Then, the bass’s line is interesting. It works in a mid-to-low-range selection of notes, with a rich and resonant, but not abrasive, sound. Its melody works around arpeggio chords, in that pre-Rocksteady style. However, interestingly, the drums avoid a traditional one drop – instead opting for a more syncopated kick, stuttering hi-hats and a winding snare – sometimes doing rim clicks.

There is a lovely use of an electric organ at times, running breves across vibrato’d chords – bringing some calming vibes to proceedings. Backing vocals are the perfect mix of Soul and choral – bringing rich harmonies along with call and response arrangements to elevate the track nicely. There are also some pleasing breaks as well as the odd inflection of Dub engineering.

One of the highlights of the composition are Dean Fraser’s wonderful horns. As always with this natural artist, they have all the qualities of a human voice. The vibrato is well-controlled and expressive. Fraser makes excellent use of crescendo and decrescendo to provide dynamic peaking and troughing, and he provides staccato and legato notes for added interest. Their melodies are especially well-arranged, providing at times pleasing responses to Giddimani’s main vocal – which is of course on-point.

Here, he combines that gruff singjay he has become famous for with a straighter vocal. The former he delivers across interesting rhythms, taking a basic clave and embellishing it well. Giddimani is forthright with his singjay here – hammering home the lyrics. But then, across the choruses his straighter vocal comes into play – bringing with it something slightly more delicate in terms of dynamics and tone but still as powerful in terms of interpretation of the lyrics – which themselves are also strong.

“Chant world peace… trample di beast” is a fitting sermon for what we all need to be doing at present, because there’s “no time to retreat” – and certainly not when world peace is at stake. Giddimani has concocted a strong message about how Babylon and its proponents continue to cause chaos with their nefarious agendas and divide and conquer tactics. But if we all united and chanted world peace, then Babylon’s gates would come crashing down. It is strong, timely, and well-through.

Overall, World Peace is a pleasing offering from Giddimani and Earth Strong. Musically intricate but not too much so it overwhelms, the classic arrangement allows Giddimani’s vocal to lead along with his lyrics – and the result is powerful yet listenable. Solid works.

Perfect Giddimani World Peace Review by Mr Topple (3rd November 2022).