by David Levine
(#2 - 00:13) [157K .au|215K .wav] I want to get you in the mood for this review. A little music, some candles, that's it, how about a glass of wine? O.K. take a hit of this, yeah it's good. Hope you're relaxing and feeling ro... romantic because that's the overall tone for this great reggae record. Never has a U.S. Marine and Gulf War veteran made such music. Shaggy is a very romantic gentleman. He talks about sex, he boasts about his prowess in the sensual arts, but he always keeps it respectful. In this record, women aren't bitches and ho's. They may cause Shaggy some consternation but he is never disrespectful. His mother raised him right.Shaggy was born in St. Andrews, Jamaica and moved to the fabulous borough of Brooklyn when he was fourteen. He got the nickname Shaggy from the Scooby Doo cartoon. In high school, he started DJing and discovered his unique bass voice.
When he finished high school, he decided to join the Marines and served in the Gulf War. While stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, he made some road trips to New York to do some recording. From these road trips came his remake of the Prince Buster classic, Oh Carolina this got great play here and in England and put Shaggy on the charts.
The record starts with a wonderful remake of the 1970 hit In The Summer Time (#1/00:00) [151K .au|207K .wav] by Mungo Jerry. I loved this song as a kid and its a great choice to sample. The second cut, Boombastic, which was sampled at the top of the review is classic. Shaggy's voice is one of a kind and he uses it playfully to act out the mood of the song. There is a unique pastiche of sounds on this and other tunes. The repeated single bass note on piano brings it all together for me and the groove is well... groovular. Another style Shaggy employs through the use of sampling is that great seventies funk/soul sound. With lots of great back up vocals (#3 - 00:22) [151K .au|208K .wav] (#5 - 00:00 ) [137K .au|188K .wav]. The combo of Shaggy's voice against great soul back vocals is sweet.
Shaggy also writes great lyrics I especially like the word play on the song about a pick pocket called Finger Smith (#6 - 00:45) [153K .au|211K .wav]. It's always nice to see a sense of humor in pop music.
Take off a gal teeth from under her top lip
Take off a gal hair and leave on the clip
Take off a guy shoes and leave the polish
Strip a gal naked and she don't even feel it
Them take off him pants and leave on the zip
Them take off him brief and leave the elastic
Take off him balls and leave hair pan it.Another song with a good sense of humor is Island Lover (#10 - 03:18) [147K .au|202K .wav]. It's about a girl whose man takes her for granted so she goes on a Jamaican vacation to find an Island lover.
According to one of my island friends, a lot of girls go to Jamaica to find an Island lover. He said. "Oh ya mon, ya mean a rent-a-rasta." News to me, although thinking back on my last trip to Jamaica I do remember a lot of foreign white girls with local dreads. Shaggy even makes fun of himself in the song called Jenny. He plays Carolina (his big hit) off his new girlfriend/song Jenny (#12 - 00:31) [134K .au|185K .wav]. Check it out and see what I mean.
In the great tradition of Reggae, there are also songs about social injustice. Forgive Them Father and How Much More deal with youth violence and ghetto life and they really deal with it head on. The record ends with two remixes. The first one is In The Summertime set to It's Your Thing by the Isley Brothers. The other is Boombastic (#16 - 00:00) [144K .au|197K .wav] set to the backdrop of one of the greatest love songs of all time: Marvin Gaye's Lets Get It On. I really dig this disc. It's got a great sense of playful bravado. This is my number one pick this month.
