Most Wanted - Eek A Mouse

iTunes Review

This collection is a survey of Eek-A-Mouse’s tenure at Greensleeves, a window that lasted roughly from 1980 to 1984. These early recordings are usually seen as Eek’s definitive work. Foremost among the reasons for this is the amazing consistency of The Roots Radics, which backed Eek during this period. The studio band was in its prime, and on the cusp of reggae’s conversion to digital instruments it provided rhythms as deep and tough as anything that has emerged from the island’s musical culture. This was also a unique window in time, when deejays like Eek assumed the role of broadcasters of street issues in Kingston. While all the era's deejays documented dancehall culture's sex and violence, Eek had an unsurpassed talent for drawing vignettes of Jamaican life colored with striking detail. This (combined with Eek’s unmistakably playful-yet-poignant vocal delivery) is the reason people are still listening to “Ganja Smuggling,” “Operation Eradication," and “Star, Daily News & Gleaner” when hundreds of other deejay records from this time have been lost to history.