Words by Jesse Serwer
In case you’ve missed all our earlier preaching on their behalf, Zion I Kings are the skilled, savvy roots production outfit consisting of St. Croix’s Laurent “Tippy” Alfred, Florida’s Jah David, and New York’s Andrew “Moon” Bain — producers of renown in their own right who came together for the greater good about three years back. They’ve laid down the riddims for some of our favorite reggae albums since then, like Midnite’s Ride Tru, and even had a hand in Snoop Lion’s Reincarnated.
Fresh off their superb one-drop remix of Major Lazer’s “Lean On,” one of our top reggae tracks for 2015, the trio have put a reggae touch on music from another Diplo project, Jack Ü. This time, they’ve taken hold of “To U,” featuring the entrancing voice of AlunaGeorge’s Aluna Francis. The remix maintains the sampled melody from the original, but fills out the track with a clean, crisp one-drop riddim. And we mean clean: this track is a perfect fusion of the original’s dreamy electro vibes, and an organic reggae sound.