Review of Lucky Dube: Lucky In Africa

Introduction

This is more of an act of promotion than something genuinely aimed at fans. For those not in the know (including myself), Lucky Dube is "one of (South Africa`s) most toured and beloved (Reggae) artists ever!" Can`t argue with that. The disc named after him is a collection of nineteen videos of his songs Slave; I Got You Babe; Together As One; Together As One (Concert Version); Truth In The World; Prisoner; House Of Exile; It`s Not Easy; Victims; Different Colours; Feel Irie (South African Version); Feel Irie (International Version); Trinity; Taxman; I Wanna Know What Love Is; Guns And Roses; The Way It Is; Put A Little Love. There are electronic press kits for Victims and Feel Irie, nine tour videos (adding up to half-an-hour), snippets and other elements that make up another ten minutes. Two hours and ten minutes in total, making quite an exhaustive resource on this artist.

The animated menuing system is genuinely classy for this kind of product, moving around a newspaper layout and selecting items with your remote. Standard stuff for movie studios but unusual for a music title in my experience.

Video

Presented in 4:3, or letterboxed formats within a 4:3 frame, the contents are entirely video-originated. Some sequences are pin sharp and clear, others suffer from a muddiness that comes from the equipment used in the recordings. The disc itself does not carry a region flag, so as long as non-UK users can handle a PAL signal the disc can be viewed anywhere.

Audio

Plenty of songs from a passionate artist with an agenda he`s passionate about. It`s just a shame some work hasn`t been put into processing the tracks beyond plain 48Khz MPEG-1 Stereo (that`s right, not even Dolby Digital).

Features

It`s hard to tell where the main feature starts and the extras finish, because the disc is a sum of little bits - videos, interviews etc. Personally I`d be inclined to say there were no extras but plenty of content, because traditional things you`d call extras, like subtitles, are missing from an otherwise exhaustive collection of material.

Conclusion

A music DVD that suffers from being pitched like a promotional handout. There`s way too much hype about the whole thing, although once you get into the music and the background material you warm to the subject. If anything lets it down more than the presentation, it`s the handling of the audio side of the enterprise which is disappointing.