Daddy T – “Money Long”
Daddy T – “Money Long” – Single Review
Doing my best here on this one…reggae-music and I have never really been in-sync with each other. Daddy T is definitely bringing out the island-inspired beats & sounds of the genre on “Money Long” – and in parts of it…it makes sense to me enough to dig what’s going on…at others, I’m a little lost on this one. I appreciate where it’s coming from more than anything else…much like a lot of the music in the reggae-genre, “Money Long” really has that freedom of expression you can hear.
It IS catchy…I’d never take that away from Daddy T here on this song from the album Dung A Gully…there’s no doubt about the hypnotic bass, drum & synth combination working on its magic on you. Due to the static nature of the beat and how it almost never deviates from its pattern, it becomes completely on the vocals to create any diversity or versatility happening in the melody. Daddy T does this pretty well…that being said, not sure if it’s just the one vocalist doing multiple voices, or multiple guests on this one track…some of these parts connected stronger in my opinion than others.
For example, the first part…nearly flawless in the tone & performance…a couple of small-breaks or cracks in the hook, but all forgivable; what I wasn’t sure about was the verses that take us into each next minute. Like as in, flowing into the first-minute, and also on the way into the second-minute. Doesn’t really matter too much if it’s just the one-man, or multiple people…some of these vocals have the rhythm AND the tone…and then these others are shooting just slightly wide of the mark. You can look at it as more wild & exotic in a way…these different sets of vocals do bring different elements to the overall sound – but I think by comparison to the main-verse up at the beginning and the hook itself…these other two sets of vocals are playing slight catch-up. Each has its moment and does contribute something solid to “Money Long” inarguably…but there’s something a little missing from the performance shared between them. Might be a cohesion-thing…as much as I love a great collaboration, maybe it wasn’t quite the right mix of voices for me on “Money Long.”
Still…hard to deny that this rhythm is a catchy one…I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t enjoying myself listening to “Money Long” – I am. Like I said, I don’t often listen to reggae-infused music…and I think changing up my playlist to represent music of all-kinds is always an important part of keeping perspective on the music-scene as a whole. So…I’ve got time for something like this that is much different from my normal musical-diet…makes things interesting for us all, I like to think.
I think a little more variation in the music isn’t really necessarily what this track needs, but it might not hurt it either. It’s short enough at three-minutes & thirty-seconds to get away with the repetition because of the unique vocals overtop as it plays. It’s still risky…impossible not to notice for anyone listening to music on a regular basis…but I don’t personally think that is hurting Daddy T here on “Money Long.” That being said…it would definitely be one of the ways you’d expect he’ll be challenging himself further on in the future…you could only get away with this kind of composition so many times without wearing out the idea.
But…due to the vocals sounding different from each other throughout each part as they go by…I felt like “Money Long” had enough change in the song to continually keep me interested. It seemed like a good mix of political/sociological messages in the lyrics, though of course it’s tough to catch them all – it’s reggae! That’s just part & parcel of reggae music, it’s hard to understand every word…unless you play it yourself…then I think it all makes crystal-clear sense to the ears. At the end of the day, I’ve always found the vocal-rhythms of reggae music to really add to the music in a way that traditional vocals tend not to…they’re much more like an instrument in reggae music in comparison to many genres out there. Respect to that – I think that’s a great part about music overall that’s still largely unexplored by many genres out there, and I think that Daddy T definitely knows how to join the rhythm of their music through the melody in their words and does it well.
I’ve played it around 20-30 times straight if that’s any indication of what I really think. Let’s face it…if I didn’t like it or didn’t want to listen, I could have easily turned this off…but I didn’t. I like the spirit of Daddy T…again, it’s a music I respect more than what suits my own personal taste, that’s all…but at the end of the day, I got love for a song that keeps the vibe chilled & pulls-off a focused idea well. I think there’s enough pull to the song to keep us entertained…I’ve tried to wear it out myself, but it seems to continue to spin on repeat on my playlist without me pressing stop…so I’d have to say, it does seem to hold up!
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