Lenny Deneb Releases Settle the Score

April 1, 2010 - PRLog -- In Settle The Score, Lenny Deneb has married rock and reggae to bring us a compelling, high energy,  reggae rock single (with blazing guitar riffs) that some have described as  a blend  of Bob Marley, Steel Pulse, Peter Tosh and the rock influences of Bruce Springsteen, The Police,  and Lenny Kravitz among others. Recorded at 4YA studios and mixed and mastered by Rawle Alcide, the song is contemplation on the emotional complexities of leaving home and making a mental and spiritual breakthrough.

At the center of this emotional and spiritual maelstrom is  Johnny who is rumored to be leaving the small town where he grew up. As we all know, leaving home is not easy. It’s a bittersweet decision. It’s trading the familiar, the comfortable, the bosom friendships, the significant others, for the unknown.  So “it takes a man to walk out the door.” Yet it is a journey many feel compel to make. For living in a small town can be stifling, mind numbing, and can feel like a prison. “It is that kind of small town mentality that imposes, yeah, on human dignity.” But one gets the impression that the journey Johnny is about to embark on is as much physical as spiritual. “He’s  got a plan and the name of a  man who passed this way sometime ago.” Is this man Jesus Christ? “You got to seek the kingdom and all these things shall be added unto you.” “Said you believe in the Holy Ghost, and you not gonna settle for life’s worst.” And apparently it is this spiritual quest that has made the artist hopeful/confident that Johnny will make it. “The sun shall not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.” “Said you believe in having fun and not in the power of the gun, and so I know you got to settle the score.”  But what is the score Johnny have got to settle?  

Filmed and edited by Brian Francis, the accompanying video of Settle The Score employs spotlights, dark rooms,  dizzying motion and techno color effects to present a dark, moody and unsettling  story of Johnny “leaving today.” We see Johnny saying goodbye to his tearful girlfriend, and then walking away, a long stretch of empty road ahead of him. We are taken on top of the hill overlooking the quaint and picturesque village of Dennery, a community that in the eyes of several St. Lucian poets, including Kendel Hippolyte, McDonald Dixon and Derek Walcott, has come to symbolize stagnation and backwardness. We see a passenger jet landing at Hewanorra International Airport, the gateway to St. Lucia, leaving no doubt of Johnny’s intention to get away.  But we suspect Johnny’s leaving is not a done deal, after all, we don’t see him boarding the plane. Instead we see him, hands up, looking up to the heavens, asking why his best friend whose prostrate body he is kneeling besides had to be shot dead.  Is his friend’s death the final straw that pushes Johnny to leaving, or does it suggests the impossibility of breaking away from home?

Lenny Deneb has had his fair share of leaving home. He left St. Lucia for the UK at the tender age of ten. In London, battling cultural shock and disorientation, he found solace at “Saxon,” a community youth center. It was there that he discovered his passion for music and where he helped form  his first music outfit, Cygnus.

Three decades later, after regularly touring Europe with his band, making appearances with the likes of  Jimmy Cliff, John Holt and Errol Dunkley and releasing several successful singles (both with the band and as a solo artist), Lenny left home again, this time London, and returned to St. Lucia, maybe not to get away from a small town mentality, because, after all,  London  is no small town, but probably  to seek greater meaning and usefulness in life. If so, then Lenny’s return to his first home has not been in vain. For no sooner he arrived he released his debut album, the critically acclaimed From The Sanctuary, which  featured a number of roots reggae and reggae rock songs. He established PCL studios through which he nurtured and recorded a number of young artist, the most celebrated of whom being Nijah “Cold Sweat” St. Catherine, who some have argued has the best voice in world reggae. For his studio and production efforts, Lenny received a nomination for Producer of the Year at the first annual St. Lucia Music Awards.

While working with young Vieux Fort talent, Lenny continued honing his craft and laying down his own music, such that he was recently discovered by W.O.A. International who was particularly interested in rock music and its variants. W.O.A.  International has since signed Lenny to a management and marketing deal for India and the Middle East. As part of this deal, Lenny is to deliver a reggae rock album accompanied with a music video or two. Settle The Score is Lenny’s first track towards this album. If the other songs for the album come anywhere close to being as good as Settle The Score, then it is safe to say that Lenny will once again  be leaving home, this time for bigger things, and maybe to finally settle the score.

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Record label owned by Lenny Deneb. The label first and foremost act as a vehicle for releasing Lenny's reggae-rock products. The label has been in existence since 1998 when it was originally named PCL.