Asked about the power of music to unite and enlighten people, Stephen Marley chuckled happily. "Yeah man, always! It combines cultures.
Today I was signing (CDs) for Japanese people in New York City," he said via telephone from Manhattan. "Music does that." While he's been making music since he was 7 - when he first recorded in Jamaica with his brothers and sisters as the Melody Makers - Marley, at 34, has just released his first solo album.
Titled "Mind Control," it is a winning and seductively listenable collection that blends melodic, rootsy, easy-skanking reggae music and socially conscious lyrics with hip-hop, dancehall, flamenco, R B and rock textures. Guest stars include Mos Def, Ben Harper and Stephen's younger brother Damian, whose Grammy-winning 2005 album, "Welcome to Jamrock," was produced and co-written by Stephen. Marley's vocals and songwriting are uncannily similar to those of his late father, the internationally beloved Bob Marley.
Songs like "Chase Dem" and "Iron Bars" (whose lyrics include "Let me out, I'm an angry lion") sound like unearthed classics from the Wailers. The entire CD should have definite appeal to Bob's fans. To these ears it is the strongest album to date from any of the Marley offspring.
Stephen's concert March 30 at Cleveland's House of Blues promises to be an event. He'll be joined onstage by brother Damian (billed as "Jr. Gong"), with special guest K'Naan, a rapper from Somalia.
Asked if the show will focus on his new album, Marley said, "No, not mostly. Everything in the mix. We're going to do a show.
Damian will be there, so we'll be doing some songs that we do together. We are supporting the new album but at the same time, we're giving you Marley music as usual." Growing up in the Marley household in Kingston, Jamaica, was it inevitable that Stephen would be a musician?
"I know nothing else, so I don't even know what to answer," he said. "Was it inevitable? I guess I can say that now.
There was no pressure from our parents or anything like that. But at the same time, music is what we do naturally, effortless." And were there frequently musicians around when he was growing up?
"Yeah man, always!" Marley said. "At Hope Road, which is the (Bob Marley) museum now in Jamaica, that was the place where the studio was, we would go there after school.
We were always surrounded by great musicians and engineers, stuff like that." While his older brother Ziggy was the frontman for the Melody Makers, Stephen's songs were invariably the highlight of the group's albums. Asked why he waited until age 34 to release a solo album, Marley said, "I've got a lot of work in front of me before I could get to me.
" Does writing songs come easily to him? "Sometimes they do," he said. "At other times, you want to say something different and there is really nothing different to say, only different ways to say it.
That makes you put a lot of thought into some songs." With the success of Damian's "Jamrock" and Stephen's terrific "Mind Control," the Marley legacy is at a new high. "I aspire to be a reckoning force," the softspoken Stephen said.
"What you hear my name, you know quality comes with that. Good music, good message, good vibe." WHO: Stephen Marley with Damian "Jr.
Gong" Marley and special guest K'Naan. WHEN: March 30, 9 p.m.
WHERE: House of Blues, Cleveland. TICKETS: $22 to $31 at Ticketmaster. You must be a user to post comments.
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