The Journey (Gee Street, 1999)

Ky-mani -- or as I like to call him, "the fathead Marley" -- rode the success of singles like "Dear Dad" (which adapts his father Bob's "Crazy Baldheads") to a major label deal, culminating in the 1999 album The Journey.  This is actually his second album -- the first, 1997's Like Father Like Son, consisting basically of covers of his father's material.  This inclination is natural I suppose, since, like his brothers Ziggy, Stephen, and likely others waiting to crawl out of the woodwork, his vocals eerily echo his dad's raspy wail.  It's almost like being in an alternate reality where Bob Marley never died and continued to release music.  However, in this "Bizarro world," Bob Marley has reached some sort of mid-life crisis and decides to "Puff Daddy" his music up a bit.  Finding genuine reggae music on The Journey is the exception rather than the rule.  In a seemingly unabashed attempt at mainstream appeal (It's hard to blame him, seeing the success of Shaggy.), Ky-mani fills this album with everything but reggae -- most prominently hip-hop and R&B, with pop, gospel, and even a bit of country thrown in.  As traitorous as this sound for the son of Bob Marley, it's clear just from the leather-clad cover that this is not your father's Bob Marley; this is a guy who seems at least as in touch with American culture as with Jamaican (since he moved to America when he was a child), a guy who sings, "Where's the keys for my Benz?"  I have to give him credit, though -- he pulls this sound off, at least for a portion of the album.  For instance, the opening track "Rude Boy" features a brutal hip-hop beat and Godfather-esque acoustic strings, while "Party's On" displays an irresistible interpretation of Hall & Oates' "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)," and "Fell in Love" has a sultry R&B/hip-hop feel that, along with the country-inspired "Country Journey" an the aforementioned "Dear Dad," draw you into this album early on.  Things change quickly, however, with the drippy, near a cappella gospel of "Return of a King," the out-of-place '60s R&B sound of "Your Love," and by the time "Warriors" and "Lord Is My Shepherd" roll around, the hip-hop sound is as stale as under-desk chewing gum.  If this album is a "journey," then Ky-mani still has a way to go.