Benjamin Booker - Witness

The Guardian 60

(Rough Trade)

In 2016, fired up by Black Lives Matter but feeling like “a songwriter with no songs”, Benjamin Booker took himself off to Mexico to figure out some answers. The New Orleans-based 26-year-old has returned with 10 personal songs which reflect issues felt by young black Americans, from isolation (The Slow Drag Under) to political epiphany and a desire to “tear this building down” (All Was Well).

With the barista turned bluesman’s musical palette now stretching from retro soul to percussive electro, Right on You even answers his question about what Otis Redding might have sounded like had he been “strapped to a punk band”. The consistent thread is Booker’s raw electric guitar, and while there’s perhaps too much going on for it all to hang together all the time, he’s happiest at his simplest. Believe is disarmingly lovely and, in a crowded musical field, the Mavis Staples-accompanied title track is gospel soul at its most impassioned and euphoric.