Ziggy Marley

This was Ziggy Marley's first album to let people know he was for real and not just rolling off of his father's fame. The title track is full of joyous energy and tasteful '80s electronics, a-la Steel Pulse. The contemporary sound of the hit "Tommorrow People" made many Roots fans cringe, however the album still goes down as a classic Ziggy album.

There's one hell of a shadow hanging over Ziggy Marley, and it's a testament to the beauty
and strength of Conscious Party that instead of being an object of morbid fascination, this
album is one of the brightest, most life-affirming records in recent memory. Ziggy's grittily
pretty voice is only the most obvious part of his musical inheritance from his father. The
album's title is fitting because Ziggy's songs – like those of Bob Marley – are, for... More >

Neither his arty producers nor his Ethiopian band force the kind of cheer that wimped out his earlier crossovers, and his sharp, gritty singing replicates his old man's lower half even if the spiritual-romantic flights are beyond him. He's gotten less platitudinous, too, though as a prophet's scion he never invests Rasta doctrine with the authority of ideas struggled for--a black Jamaican cosmopolitan enough to voice sympathy for a "white guy in love with black beauty" sounds as priggish as any other puritan when he goes on about alcohol and processed foods. (Grade - B+)