Track Of Yesterday: Tappa Zukie - M.P.L.A. (Klik)

Coming out in 1976, Tappa Zukie’s ‘MPLA’, named after the Angolan Socialist Democratic Party, who fought a war against the colonial Portuguese from 1961 to 1974, has nothing whatsoever to do with uprisings, war and the overthrow of oppression. Not directly anyway. It’s an ode to resettlement in the promised land of rasta. The MPLA is also name checked in ‘Anarchy In The UK’, again, not directly because of its cause, but because it rhymes with UK. More than anything else though, this kind of namedropping was a sign of the times, and the constant political upheaval going on everywhere back then. Not much has changed I suppose. However, back then I think it meant more to the individual on a more idealistic level in that there seemed to be more of a capacity to participate and realistically contribute, than now.