Keziah Jones
Captain Rugged
Because Music
Keziah Jones wants to be Fela Kuti. The Nigerian singer has enough talent to save Captain Rugged from the knacker鈥檚 yard, but there鈥檚 no escaping the fact that he鈥檚 doing this under Fela鈥檚 enormous and unaviodable shadow.
We rather like the genre name Jones has cooked up to define his music: blufunk. It combines punk, funk and Yoruba rhythms to form a reasonably enticing mix. The album certainly has plenty to like: the sleazy groove of Hypothetical, the easy rhythms of Laughter, the simple pleasures of the closing track Praise. Overall, it can鈥檛 be denied that the album is reasonably good stuff.
However, the problem is, there is nothing here that makes Jones really stand out. It鈥檚 good, competent, well-produced music, but with the talent Jones has, Captain Rugged鈥 should have wowed listeners. Coming after Fela and the other important giants of Nigerian music, it burps and bleats where it should roar and snort. It鈥檚 still an interesting experience though, screaming the words 鈥渟hut up!鈥 at our speakers, as we did during the song Utopia.
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Rob Boffard