Various Artists: Chant Down Babylon : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Chant Down Babylon is a giant piety party with reggae's most hallowed saint as the guest of honor. Bob Marley's son, Stephen, along with his brothers Julian and Damian, have manipulated dad's original vocals and backing tracks with hip-hop beats and contemporary urban production, bringing in rap and R&B stars from Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill to Chuck D and Rakim for duets. The results aren't nearly as tacky as they could have been. Hill's lusciously romantic take on "Turn Your Lights Down Low" almost out-souls the original, and on "Rastaman Chant" Busta Rhymes shows that his spew is just as maniacally infectious when he's going on about Jah. Still, there are egregious errors: MC Lyte sucks all the spunk out of "Jammin'," and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry (who appear on "Roots, Rock, Reggae") never should have been allowed through the studio door. The rappers occasionally overwhelm the guy they're supposed to be celebrating - Marley's voice sometimes floats untethered in the mix, like a party crasher - but Chant Down Babylon still accomplishes its basic goals: It introduces a young audience to a deserving icon and makes a pointed political connection between present-day America and Marley's Jamaican slums. And everyone gets to feel real, real good in the process. (RS 827)

KAREN SCHOEMER