Natty Universal Dread 1973-1979

At the time of its release, Blood & Fire’s multi-disc survey of Big Youth’s ‘70s sides was their most ambitious undertaking to date. As this lovingly assembled 51-song box set Natty Universal Dread 1973-1979 can attest, Big Youth was a major force on Jamaican music and this set does its best in capturing a figure (born Manley Augustus Buchanan) who was as much an influence on the Jamaican deejay tradition as he was on UK punk and American hip-hop. Across the first disc, B&F collects early sides he cut for both Joe Gibbs and on his own Negusa Nagast label. Already, the careening, empowered deejay was pontificating at his leisure. As one moves through this set, Youth’s heady blend of trenchant political observation, loverman purrs, Rastifarian thought, and unchained crooning take hold, and peak Big Youth can still make you feel word-drunk each time he steps up to the mic. He testifies like a fire-and-brimstone preacher one minute, shouts for Marcus Garvey the next, then sings like a drunk uncle on “Hit the Road Jack” and “Sugar, Sugar.”