Three years after the excellent 'Jah Victory' Alpha Blondy returns with 'Vision'. During the recording of this album, Alassane Ouattara and Laurent Gbagbo were still battling it out for the post of president in Alpha's native Ivory Coast. It will therefore come as no surprise that Alpha included the following message for his countrymen in the liner notes of the album: "A mes soeurs et frères de Côte d'Ivoire et à la famille politique Ivoirienne, toutes tendances confondues, abolissons ensemble le concept d'Ivoirité, concept dangereux pour notre unité. Vive les U.S.A. (United States of Africa)!" ("to my brothers and sisters in Ivory Coast and the Ivorian political family, of all possible tendencies, let's abandon the dangerous concept of Ivoirité. Long live the U.S.A. (United States of Africa)!"). In some of the tracks on 'Vision' Alpha doesn't spare his criticism either: 'Le Cha-Cha-Cha Du CFA' targets African straw-men in service of the West and with 'Ma Tête' Alpha settles the score with opportunists who don't shy away from promoting him when it suits them only to push him aside just as quickly afterwards. From a musical point of view 'Vision' is reggae "grand cru" and in part that has to do with some of the guest musicians who make an appearance on the album: Ismael Lo on harmonica, Clinton Rufus (The Gladiators) on guitar and Dennis Bovell, who took care of some of the backing vocals and acted as a mixing engineer. Unfortunately Alpha also goes off the tracks at times: there's the mellow 'Stewball' (a cover of an old folk song about a racehorse that was already immortalized by Woody Guthrie and Steeleye Span in the past) and the irritating HIV anthem 'Vuvuzela' with the "profound" lyrics: "Protège ton vuvuzela avant de faire waka waka!" ("protect your vuvuzela before going waka waka"), didn't quite tickle our fancy either. All in all, the twentieth album by the Ivorian reggae King leaves a little to be desired.