* Shaggy
HOTSHOT
(MCA)
The Jamaican-born and Brooklyn-bred Shaggy is
one of the few reggae artists to score with mainstream American audiences in
the '90s. His two hits, "Oh Carolina" and "Boombastic," were charming slices of
dancehall-lite that crossbred island riddims with US pop savvy. But somewhere
on the path toward Hotshot, Shaggy must have lost sight of the Jamaican
coastline, since dancehall's hip-twitching rhythmic drive is almost entirely
absent from the disc. Instead, it's stocked with limpid mid-tempo hip-hop and
soggy R&B jams that sound at best like new-jack swing. The three
contributions by R&B über-producers Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis are
catchy enough, but their success has more to do with the played-out samples
they're based on -- Michael Jackson, Rose Royce, the Honeydrippers -- than with
innovative studio work. Attempting to sell himself as a ghetto-fabulous mack
daddy ("Leave It to Me"), a ruff 'n' tuff rudeboy ("Not Fair"), and a
conscious preacher ("Hope"), Shaggy comes up with cliché'd rhymes that
are more laughable than believable.
-- Michael Endelman
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