Has there ever been an artist that is more synonymous with a single genre of music than Bob Marley is with reggae? Here’s a chore for your average music fan, name a reggae artist who doesn’t have the last name Marley. It’s not that there isn’t a plethora of talented reggae musicians that have been playing the genre’s timeless music for decades; it’s that none of them outside of Marley and his offspring have gained any real mainstream popularity. South Florida’s Richie Booker could fall into that territory, just another casualty of the lack of originality in the genre or lack of interest by any type of mainstream outlet. There is one thing that’s different about Booker though that sets him apart from his many peers. He is apparently the brother of Bob Marley, and more than likely that’s why I currently have his debut album, Shine the Light, in my possession.
Being advertised as “reggae royalty,” Booker’s sound is far different from his brothers. Though I’m not sure how strongly I can really stress the word brother, I’m assuming that Booker and Marley shared the same mother but I’m unsure if the two actually had any type of relationship. Booker calls his updated reggae sound, “alternative reggae,” but what it ends up sounding like is dance music with an occasional reggae beat. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. The album starts off with the sleek pop-injected song “Wow” which showcases two sides of Booker’s vocals, the more attractive smooth delivery and the much more painful nasally one. That being said, Shine the Light mostly goes down hill after the album opener, with only a few more promising moments scattered throughout the mostly unimaginative and tritely repetitive disc.
It’s not until the third song on the album “Station Revelation” that we’re welcomed with a song that actually resembles the classic definition of reggae music. The song proves that Booker does have the voice for the genre, he obviously should. What it also shows is that the album is as sporadic as any I’ve ever heard. After the stripped down reggae jam, which along with the following song “Shine the Light” are really more straight forward repetitive melodies than “jams,” Booker reverts back to a synth-filled dancer and then violently puts us in the middle of a drum machine led Lenny Kravitz type rocker. By the time the album’s true highlight “Natty in the Vineyard” came around, I had already developed a headache.
As impossible as it may sound, the album actually ends even shoddier than it unfolds. None of the tracks after the Marley worthy “Natty in the Vineyard” are even the slightest bit memorable. “Déjà vu” actually carries a nice beat, but it seems nakedly out of place here, and the loud and grinding “U Ain’t From Around Here” is just downright hard to sit through. The disc ends with Booker chasing a new fad and employing the use of auto-tone vocals on the song “Medicine Man,” it’s pretty easy to figure out after a minute or two into the song that the trick is better left to the younger generation.
I really hoped that Shine the Light would be a much better listen than it turned out to be. I actually saw the album in a promising light after the opening track, but sadly the disc failed to even meet my most modest of expectations. It doesn’t even matter than Booker enjoys the help of one of his brother Bob’s gifted sons Stephen Marley on the album, it still falls miles short of anything his dear brother crafted or helped popularize in his time. I guess not everyone in the family is destined for legend status.
"Shine the Light" is on sale January 27, 2009 from SKD Urban.
