Screenshot via YouTube
With Vybz Kartel behind bars for the time being, the pop culture pendulum in Jamaica is swinging toward consciousness. The island’s top dancehall export and Kartel protege Popcaan has abandoned his predecessor’s badman brand, and artists like Chronixx are on the rise. The latter is the unofficial leader of what’s been dubbed a “reggae revival” on the island, although the representatives of said movement will be the first to say the genre never left. And like reggae, the ganja love song hasn’t gone anywhere either. Chronixx is back with his own requisite contribution to this catalogue with the video for Perfect Tree, joining fellow “revivalists” like Keznamdi and Jesse Royal who’ve each given us their own prohibition-protest tracks “10 Pound” and “Gimmie Likkle/ Finally” (Kez also recently came out with his “ganja refix” of Rihanna’s “Work” aptly titled “Herb“… give thanks).
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Originally from Chronixx’s 2013 mixtape collaboration with Major Lazer and Black Chiney linchpin Walshy Fire, the song gets a revamp with the help of newcomer Eesah. The video opens with a diatribe by Chronixx bemoaning the current state of marijuana legalization as he wanders into a clandestine, hillside herb garden. While recent reforms decriminalized small quantities of the plant and effectively legalized it for Rastafarians to use as a sacrament, Chronixx thinks it’s high time that the government goes a step further and lifts the prohibition all together. It’s part of his continued effort to keep Jamaica on that conscious ting and make it more Rasta-friendly, something that I talked to him about when we met at his childhood home in Spanish Town last year for the Jamaica episode of Noisey (coming to VICELAND on March 29 at 10 PM, ahem). Check out the video for “Perfect Tree” below and be on the lookout for Noisey: Jamaica on VICELAND.
Zach Goldbaum is the host of Noisey on VICELAND. Follow him on Twitter.
