Various Artists - Trojan Box Set: X-Rated Reggae (CD)

All Music Guide

This is perhaps the first authoritative release documenting the notion of "slackness" (overtly sexually suggestive lyrics) and its place in the Jamaican RB and reggae pantheons. While early calypso recordings by Lord Kitchener and Count Lasher provided Jamaican audiences with titillating fare, by the time slackness got to ska and reggae it was out of the box and off the hook. There are 50 sides collected on these three CDs, and they make for one of the rowdiest, saucy party mixes of all time. Trojan, from their seeming endless catalogue, has assembled this collection with great care, bringing not only the salaciously oriented tracks to the fore, but the best of them, recorded by both obscure and very well known popular artists in the genre: There's Max Romeo with the skanking "Wet Dream" Lloyd Patsy," with "Stranger Do IT Sweet," "Derrick Morgan's "My Dickie," Lee Perry on a pair of tracksand producing a few others, Augustus Pablo with Fay tearing it up on "Bedroom Mazurka," and even mighty dread URoy with "What Is Catty." Most of this is somewhat crude in terms f its humor, rather than something aesthetically sensual, but the music here is first rate, killer beats and rhythms, very sophisticated melodies and steamy reggae. This collection is not for everybody, but it is a landmark and documents for punters as well as collectors an important subgenre in Jamaican music.

- Thom Jurek , All Music Guide