The technological advances made towards the latter part of the twentieth century served to inform every genre of music - even folk musicians, like John Fahey, found some use for new fangled gadgets. But in Jamaica, the shift towards supremely electronic production began as early as in any other genre. As early as '77 or '78 one can hear the over indulgent synthesizers begin to crop up. And in dubs, the differences became even more pronounced.

To fault the spate of producers working at the beginning of the '80s would be ridiculous, but as time progressed, the reliance upon ethereal and all too clearly forged sounds seemed to envelop the more organic dub combos from the previous decade. Of course, the Aggrovators and other groups closely associated with specific studios persisted, but again, their sound was drastically altered by the inclusion of these concocted sounds.

It seems that along with the non-stop reissue campaigns currently running, some of these latter day dub discs are going to not only again see the light of day, but gain some relatively high profile attention. As is the norm, Greensleeves, with its vast backlog has spearheaded the digital dancehall effrontery.

As a whole, dancehall maintains its fair share of pratfalls. And very realistically adding any sort of contrived, digital production isn't going to help. But of course, there exceptions to any rule. And while Nitty Gritty's Turbo Charged isn't a stoned stunner, it pretty easily surpasses the rest of the genre.

The fact that the disc counts a buncha recognizable melodies doesn't hurt. And Nitty Gritty's re-interpretation of "Ring the Alarm," here called "False Alarm" is probably alone worth hunting the disc down for. Turbo Charged veers in and out of its bothersome digital production. But here everything seems to work together. Of course, using a classic as the basis for anything generally goes well. But this track also finds Nitty Gritty's voice sounding the strongest. He's imbued with an odd timbre that at times can be just short of jarring. And amidst the slur of the chorus here, Nitty's able to overcome an oddity that might be perceived.

At the risk of being chastised by readers again, it should be understood that this disc represented the first fully solo album from the deejay. Nitty Gritty would return with a proper follow up a few years later, but because of his association with an all too violent subculture, the singer encountered some problematic situations.

In 1991, while standing outside of a record shop in New York, Nitty Gritty was dropped to the ground by gun shots. It hasn't ever been determined as to what provoked the attack, but that to a certain extent doesn't matter. The fact that his family lost a loved one and the music world lost a performer is the only piece of this that's worth noting. Again, folks can refuse to see the link between dancehall culture and violence - and I'm not figuring one is the cause of the other - but there is a relationship. And until it's properly addressed, more folks are going to be affected by it. Done.