P4M ALBUM REVIEW: Dubtribe Bryant Street

Up.

That's Dubtribe Sound System in a nutshell. And they're not to be dismissed just 'cause listening to them is so fucking... affirmational. They're not edgey, in the culture-expandingly dangerous sense of the term, though Dubtribe geniuses Sunshine Jones and Moonbeam Jones do have a knack for doing something fresh when fueling their propulsive, "next-pop" mechanics with a mix of contemporary music forms (house, techno, neo-funk, etc.). But their stuff does bring legendarily wide-ranging audiences close to the brink of some kind of communal, existential thrill, in which suddenly you realize, Yeah, the body is nothing but a mass of irritable substance, and joy should always be the chief irritant.

For the past two years there was some business drama that kept Dubtribe from releasing a new album. But now there's Bryant Street, dropping from Jive Electro on February 23. Conga- and bongo-charged, the album definitely belongs in your current party mix, definitely belongs in your convertible, as a leavening agent amidst all the more heavily analytical or intellectual matter. Look for Dubtribe on their major North American tour, starting next week and running through April 30. Will you have good time, when Sunshine and Moonbeam bring their stuff to town? Oh, positively.

The Opinionator On... The Murder of Amadou Diallo

Forty-one shots. As you've probably heard by now, that's what four New York police officers judged appropriate last Thursday to shower on an unarmed 22-year-old man from the Bronx, Amadou Diallo, at the door of his building on what the New York Times described as a "worn but well-kept" block" of Wheeler Avenue. Nineteen bullets reached Diallo, who died. The cops said they had been chasing a rapist. A recent immigrant from Guinea, Diallo had never been in trouble with the law, and has been described all over the media by friends and neighbors as a friendly, hard-working man.

Little has been done since Sunday's huge rally outside Diallo's home-- at which speakers like Al Sharpton raised the necessary questions from the mike, while demonstrators expressed themselves angrily amidst patrolling police officers. Yes, a state grand jury is convening this week to determine whether the officers should be tried criminally. NAACP president Kweisi Mfume has called on U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to keep an eye on the investigation that's been launched by the Bronx District Attorney's office. But by "little" we mean that no squad cars or police stations have been set on fire; no officers have been ambushed; no vengeful chorus has yet arisen from the throats of New Yorkers ashamed of, and sickened by, the fates of Michael Jones and Abner Louima and others who suffer police prejudice and brutality under far less public circumstances than Diallo's.

It's only February, though. Historically, in times of acute struggle, the temperateness of spring and summer affords several... more incendiary alternatives for action.