Latest CD releases reviewed
MS THING
Ms Jamaica Sequence
**
It's not just hip-hop gals who rap about Gucci, Versace and diamonds, as Jamaican teenage sensation Ms Thing shows with her shopping sprees on Rich & Famous. The 17-year-old is best known for her appearance on that notorious homophobe Beenie Man's Dude smash, so it's perhaps no surprise that she has hooked up with Dave Kelly, the man who produced that banger, to put her début album on the right track. Kelly fires up bouncy digital dancehall fare over which Ms Thing chatters away about what she wants from her man but, despite a few snazzy tricks (Kelly sprays the Fiesta rhythm all over Regular and uses the Bittersweet Symphony/Last Time strings to open Sweet Soca Music), there's simply not enough lyrical dazzle to fill an entire album.
[ www.sequencerecords.comOpens in new window ]
VARIOUS
Is It Rolling Bob? Ras
***
However bemused you are at the idea of reggae dons giving Bob Dylan tunes a new lick of paint, imagine how His Bobness felt when the CD arrived in the post. As concepts go, it's a slim one, but it does create some quite unexpected moments of glee. It helps, of course, that there's a fine house-band sitting in on the sessions, guided on their way by Sly Dunbar. Just as there is much to recommend about young blade Sizzla tearing his way through a typically fierce reading of Subterranean Homesick Blues, you will also find yourself swaying to what Toots Hibberts brings to Maggie's Farm and the hurt and sadness Beres Hammond finds lurking in Just Like A Woman. Add in eight echoey dub treatments by Doctor Dread and it really is Jah Dylan time.
