Still leaning on the electro-heavy production of early 90s dancehall and relying on a repetitive, growling delivery that doesn't exactly break new ground for either rhythm or rhyme, Banton bullies his way through heart-on-the-sleeve consciousness raisin! g ("Deportees", "Willy", "No Respect", "Wicked Act"), more typical boasts ("Good Body"), and romance ("Red Rose", "Make My Day", "Commitment") alike. But it takes considerably more than a (shrewdly?) reformed social conscience to make great reggae.
Indeed, he quickly turned from the gay-bashing "Boom Boom Bye Bye" to promoting AIDS awareness and condoms on this 1993 album's groundbreaking "Willy (Don't Be Silly)". But a conversion to the popular Jamaican cult of Rastafarianism-and crucially, Voice of Jamaica -seemed to mark a dramatic turning point for both Banton's soul and music. With the dancehall electro-beats, obsession with violence, and homophobia that characterised his earliest releases, the then-teenaged Buju Banton (born Mark Myrie of Salt Lane, Kingston) couldn't escape troubling parallels with some of his early 90s American hip-hop counterparts.