tappa zukie: m.p.l.a. sessions

The great M.P.L.A. album got its first release in 1976, the same year that also saw the release of Tapper Zukie in Dub. A misconception is that the M.P.L.A. album is the vocal version of the dub album. But on closer inspection, you can see that only five of the rhythms correspond to both sets and new rhythms were added to make the In Dub set. The reasons were firstly to make it different from the M.P.L.A. album and secondly, other rhythms were chosen at the time to enhance the dub set. As Tapper Zukie himself explains, "Well, I was very impressed with the Joe Gibbs Better Dub album that was out at the time and wanted to make a similar album that would be as strong as that. So I put the Tapper in Dub album together as a 500-run album so we could sell it on the tour we were doing in England in 1976 on the back of the M.P.L.A. album. I added some new rhythms to some we had used on that album, as I thought they added something to it and would kinda make it run/sound tuffer." So for the first time, Jamaican Recordings has put the vocal version alongside its dub counterpart to get a feeling of how they would have worked together in that context. M.P.L.A. Sessions pulls together the corresponding vocal cuts from the M.P.L.A. album and the dub versions found on the In Dub set to add a little something nice to the dance, and with Tapper's consent, the dub cut to "Marcus" -- "Marcus Dub" to "make this set run also." So sit back and enjoy where vocal meets version.