Raw Food Riddim – Taxi Records

Raw Food Riddim comes off like Taxi Records taking the classic Bam Bam pulse and dressing it in a cleaner mid-2000s reggae frame, with Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare steering the production and a mix of roots voices and tougher dancehall names riding the same groove. One of the sharpest pairings is Bounty Killer with Bunny Rugs on “Down in the Ghetto, ” while Tarrus Riley and Jimmy Riley add a more melodic lift on “Stronger” and Hawkeye keeps the edge on “Impersonator. ” It was released in 2005, right in Taxi’s long run of tightly assembled rhythm projects. The sequencing moves from Belinda and Kibaki into a run of solo cuts, then closes with a stacked stretch of combinations and the version, which makes the whole set feel deliberately paced rather than thrown together.