Eek-A-Mouse is a fantastical reggae artist and has released over 16 albums in a career that continues to this day. But the album that solidified his early position in roots royalty was the 1982 release of “Wa-Do-Dem.”
“Wa-Do-Dem” features a style of melodic word release that Eek-A-Mouse himself is the pioneer of, a style called Sing-Jay.
Sing-Jay is a type of vocal process that is part bouncy sing-along, part slight skating and part rapping. His signature “Biddy Bong Bong” skat phrase is a tasty ingredient of this recipe.
The instrumentals are played by legendary back-up band The Roots Radics. The Radics have backed up such acts as Bunny Wailer and Don Carlos and just bring a classic reggae rhythmatic sound that is combined with dub-like appeal, minus the over-dramatization of echo effects. Perfect bass lines are exacted by Flabba Holt and is what makes the music sway. The drum roll half-way through “Long Time Ago” by Styles Scott is glory for the initiated.
The songs are very mellow but still contain an edge that the Mouse is known for. His early albums are very concentric of a peaceable notion. He was singing from the soul on this early album as well as another titled “Skidip,” which was his next release, but toward the end of his career he hardened his shell and fused a more hip-hop style into the music and began rapping about crack-cocaine and guns and being a gangster.
“Wa-Do-Dem” has 10 tracks on it. The opening song, “Ganja Smuggling,” is a tireless song. It is the story of a man reflecting back upon a youth of poverty and struggle as he is now smuggling marijuana. As he loads marijuana into a van bound for the plane that is to be flown over to Spain, he looks down and reflects once more. “Me shoes tear up/me toe just a show/me no know if a me really want to go. Mama tell me ‘No rob drug store/ police beat you, make your back sore.”
“Long Time Ago” is great, and the music performed by The Roots Radics is just amazing, especially Holt’s opening bass, as all other instruments are hushed. The Mouse begins with “Let there be night/And let there be day/It’s a wonderful world that we live in today/Loving one another/Let the good things be/Life should make you feel so happy.”
Now I know this seems like a cliché reggae statement, but how can you deny a message like that? Look past statements of abuse as statements of abuse and take them as cliché for a reason, because they work.
There are a few love songs that are included on this record, of which is the title track “Wa-Do-Dem.”
The best line is “Me love a see her with an ear full of curl/Anywhere she go a people love her in the world/She don’t wear a diamond/She don’t wear a pearl/ Jah-a-Know-owws.”
“Noah’s Ark” is a head-nod full of old wise Jamaican parables that drip from the lips of The Mouse like a cold drink does as it splashes the face of the earnest. “The wise man build his house on the rock/The foolish man build his house on the sand/And then the rain came tumbling down/ The foolish man’s house is washed away/How could the wise man build his house on the sand?/How can the wise man build his house where there is no foundation, on the Sand?” Another cool part in this song, is that all the music is killed except for Holt on base and Eek has an echo effect added to his voice, and then slowly the music builds up and up and then it reverses like the scratch of a record and comes back to its original starting position. Very nice.