Rebelution (Tanya Stephens album)

Rebelution
Studio album by Tanya Stephens
Released	August 29, 2006
Recorded	2004-2006
Genre	Dancehall, Reggae, Pop Rock, Dance
Length	68:22[1]
Label	VP/Tarantula Records
Producer	Andrew Henton, Barry O'Hare, Neil Amos, Romain "Sherkhan" Chiffre
Tanya Stephens chronology
Gangsta Blues (2004) Rebelution (2006) Infallible (2010) Singles from Rebelution "These Streets" Released: July 31, 2006 "What A Day" Released: August 7, 2006

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Rebelution is Tanya Stephens' sixth album. More than two years after the release of Gangsta Blues, VP Records released the eagerly awaited new album entitled "Rebelution". Musically the album tends to be very acoustic, and the lyrics are as hard-hitting and poignant. However, Rebelution has a more cultural vibe, most notably on tracks such as To The Rescue (across the "Halfway Tree" riddim, a remake of Bunny Wailers classic "Ballroom Floor" riddim), The Truth, Come A Long Way and To The Limit, which draws on a classic Burning Spear riddim. Production came from (among others) her boyfriend & life partner Andrew Henton.^[3]

Background

The songs on the album range in topics. Racism, homophobia, addiction, relationships, sexism, & politics. Every song has within it, a message. Take for example the single: These Streets, which utilizes a slightly revamped version of Bob Marley's No Woman, No Cry riddim. In this song she admonishes her lover not to treat her with any less respect than he does his car and other possessions. She compares his regular activities to what he should be doing with her. However, "These Streets" is not the only song that makes a strong impression. Other notable tracks are To The Rescue (in which she justifies a swoop for someone else's guy by explaining all the other woman's faults), Damn You (a moving song about being the victim of a heartbreak), Come A Long Way (a tribute to Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and other great leaders of the civil rights movement), Warn Dem (in which she rails adamantly against violence and war), Put It On You, a fine dancehall song about being aroused (or horny) where she says that she wants her chosen guy to slam her hard "like de "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, Do You Still Care, a song about acceptance and discrimination, in which she starts to tell about a white racist dying of liver failure being saved by the liver of a black man and ends with a homophobic ghetto youth being saved by a gay passerby after being shot.

Along with the CD comes a Bonus DVD which includes video clips from the big international hit It's A Pity and Warm Dem. It also includes an live acoustic performance Tanya Stephens held at the Knitting Factory in NYC for a select group of music critics and media, in which she brings acoustic versions of I Am Woman, Can't Breathe and It's A Pity (all from the Gangsta Blues album) and several of the tracks from Rebelution including To The Rescue, Damn You, Cherry Brandy, Spilt Milk, Do You Still Care, and These Streets. Furthermore the DVD includes interviews in the studio with Tanya Stephens and Barry O'Hare, the producer who discovered her, and also her own producer & life partner; Andrew Henton.^[4]

Track listing

All acoustic tracks & music videos from the DVD are from Rebelution unless otherwise stated.

Personnel

CD

• Andrew Henton - drums/production
• Rick Sabo - guitar
• Delroy "Delly" Golding - percussion
• Oliver Chastan - executive producer
• Barry O'Hare - producer
• Romain "Sherkhan" Chiffre - production, guitars and mixing engineer
• Ivan Evangelista - audio engineer
• Jean Luc Cohen - mixing engineer
• Tanya Stephens - writing/production

DVD

• Andrew Henton - drums/production
• Rick Sabo - guitar
• Delroy "Delly" Golding - percussion
• Oliver Chastan - executive producer/director
• Alex Kane - director/camera operator
• Barry O'Hare - producer
• Sherkan - guitar
• Ivan Evangelista - audio engineer
• Tanya Stephens - writing/production

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Chart History

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Reception

AllMusic said of the album "Reggae, decades after its emergence, remains an overwhelmingly male-dominated domain, and the dancehall subgenre, in particular, has demonstrated a forceful resistance to allowing women into the club. Alongside Lady Saw, Ce'Cile, J.C. Lodge, and scarce few others, Tanya Stephens has emerged over the past decade as a leader in closing the gender ranks. Rebelution is far and above her most impressive effort to date and stands to win her the title of new dancehall queen. Penning all of her own lyrics, with the music supplied by a handful of co-producers (in particular Andrew Henton) who, in most cases, also supply the instrumentation, Stephens has -- whether deliberately or coincidentally -- crafted a thematically cohesive concept album of sorts. Her focus here is on female empowerment, be it in the music business, in bed or in the streets. In turn hilarious and dead serious, and shifting easily from dancehall to conscious roots reggae, Stephens lays it all down unambiguously. In Put It on You, she leaves no doubt what she expects from her partner: 'Well me a watch you like a sniper 'cause me want you ride me like a biker/Climb up pon the buff like a hiker/Basically me want you slam me hard like the "Rowdy" Rowdy Piper', while in These Streets she admonishes her lover not to treat her with any less respect than he does his car and other possessions. The back-to-back Saturday Morning and Cherry Brandy address the conundrum of the alcohol-inspired one-nighter. In the former, Stephens has no clue who she's woken up next to, and swears she's sticking to Coke (the liquid, not the powder) from now on. But in the sequel she's over it fast, pledging her allegiance to favourite guys with names like Jack Daniels and Johnny Walker. Stephens is the owner of an especially flexible voice that's equally convincing in a soft ballad—and much of this album takes that form—and a stone-hard dancehall floor-stomper. In any form, though, her words are winners, and never lightweight: Rosa, a tribute to the late civil rights heroine Rosa Parks and other great leaders of the movement, notes with appropriate respect that while those of African heritage have come a long way, people are "still not unified." In Warn Dem, immediately following, she rails adamantly against violence and war. Do You Care wonders about the predicament of the racist white man receiving a liver transplant from a black person, and the homophobe rescued by the driver sporting a gay pride sticker. Yet when Stephens takes on the battle of the sexes, she is equally and unflinchingly frank, defending her role as a "housewrecker" in Still a Go Lose and leaving nothing to the imagination when, in the album-closing Don't Play, she instructs her stud: "Me want yuh stick it up so hard me a listen out fi 'gimme the loot!/Pass the remote and make sure say the Magnavox mute/So when the neighbor them see you them say respect my youth." No doubt about it now, Tanya Stephens means business.^[7]

References