like crystals." Rogie explained: "I hear a catchy expression and I pass it on to my sub-conscious and say: 'I want a song out of this.' I believe everything useful comes from there, the subconscious mind. It is the creative power. It creates the songs, passes it back to me and says: 'Hey you, take it out. Go use it!'" The songs are melodically simple and sung by Rogie in a soothing baritone vocal style, often in the Krio language. The songs also feature call-and-response vocals, a characteristic traditional to African music. The songs frequently reveal the influence of American rhythmic yodeler Jimmie Rodgers, Rogie's earliest musical hero, although the influence is presented on the album in an African-inflected style. The songs on the album are said to be stylistically similar, relying on the same musical theme. The first three minutes of the title track "Dieman Noba Smoke Tafee (Dead Men Don't Smoke Marijuana)" consist of African guitar lines "curling around each other" before Rogie begins singing. Release Dead Men Don't Smoke Marijuana was released on 16 May 1994 by Real World Records in the United Kingdom. Tony Stiles designed the album packaging with consultancy from Assorted Images and art direction from Michael Coulson. The packaging is consistent with other Real World albums in that it follows Garry Mouat's identity concept for the label. Three days after the album's release, Rogie began a tour of Germany. Against the medical advice of his heart bypass surgeons, he travelled to perform in Russia, where he lost consciousness while performing onstage. He died at the age of 68 in June 1994, and was survived by his wife, two daughters and a son. While writing about the album shortly after Rogie's death, West Africa wrote that the performer "is ranked alongside other Sierra Leonean icons of music and culture such as Ebezener Calender, Ali Ganda, Dele Charlie, Salami Coker and Dr Oloh." Critical reception Dead Men Don't Smoke Marijuana received critical acclaim; Ty Burr of Entertainment Weekly, writing shortly after Rogie's death, called the album "as mellow a monument as the man himself" and wrote Rogie's guitar style "has the lulling pulse one associates with a fine afternoon buzz." Jazz Times wrote that the album possesses "[a] softly jubilant sound [that] rises up," and noted that Rogie "wraps his baritone voice around sweet, syncopated folk songs in a style described with the term 'palm