| Unity | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Shinehead |
| Cover: | Unity (Shinehead album).jpg |
| Released: | 1988 |
| Genre: | Rap, reggae |
| Label: | Elektra[1] |
| Producer: | Jam Master Jay, Davy D, Claude Evans |
| Prev Title: | Rough and Rugged |
| Prev Year: | 1986 |
| Next Title: | The Real Rock |
| Next Year: | 1990 |
Unity is an album by the British Jamaican musician Shinehead, released in 1988.[2] [3]
The album peaked at No. 185 on the Billboard 200.[4] "Gimme No Crack" was a minor radio hit.[5]
"Come Together", "Truth", and "Chain Gang Rap" were produced by Jam Master Jay; the rest of the album was produced by Davy D and Claude Evans. Roots Radics contributed to the album. "Who the Cap Fits" is a remake of a song from Shinehead's debut album.[2] "Chain Gang Rap" samples Duke Ellington's "Take the A Train" and incorporates elements of Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang". The title track samples "Come Together".[6]
Trouser Press wrote that Shinehead "continues to mix yankee hip-hop and yardee MC."[7] The New York Times noted that "Shinehead will drift into a falsetto voice to sing, parody somebody for a second, change the beat–nothing stays the same for long."[2] The Gazette determined that Shinehead "proves himself one of the most inventive, intelligent rappers on the scene."[8] The Philadelphia Inquirer concluded that Unity "contains rap, dub-poet toasting, and some of the leanest, most concise vocalizing anywhere in black pop."[9]
The Washington Post stated: "A striking major-label debut, Unity is as rhythmically limber as it is well-meaning."[10] The Los Angeles Times determined that "'Hello Y'All' combined a rap-style vocal with hard reggae rhythms ... 'Know How Fe Chat' reversed the equation by setting a patois-laden Jamaican vocal against a funk arrangement."[11] The Toronto Star deemed the album "a comically-inspired fusion of rap and reggae."[12]
AllMusic called the album "too lighthearted and positive to catch the ears of hip-hop heads who were beginning to lean on harsher sounds that were developing." The Chicago Tribune listed Unity as the sixth best album of 1988; the Star Tribune listed it as the fourteenth.[13] [14]