Like his mate Damon Albarn, on whose Honest Jon’s label The Hour Of Two Lights appears, Terry Hall has been bitten by the world music bug. But whereas the Blur lead singer travelled to Africa for his inspiration, the former Specials singer has turned his attention to eastern Europe and the Middle East on a fantastic record of banging global grooves, with beats supplied by the British-Asian DJ/producer, Mushtaq.
Albarn himself turns up on a delirious track, “Ten Eleven”, while elsewhere Hall’s own distinctive vocals are joined by a troupe of Polish gypsy refugees from London and even a blind Algerian rapper. If you think about it, it’s a perfectly logical progression for Hall from the early multiculturalism of The Specials.
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