What happened to Vybz Kartel? In the early years of the previous decade the Jamaican DJ possessed a nimble versatility that well matched dancehall's musical promiscuity, switching between slippery, smoke-damaged double-time raps and hypnotic sing-song choruses with an agility that for a time seemed unmatched. But at some point in the second half of the decade, Kartel may have begun to feel burdened by his own success, his regular status as Jamaica's number-one DJ also making him more vulnerable to demands that he represent the community rather than just its gun-wielding, girl-grabbing, ganja-imbibing contingent.
Whatever the reason, on his most recent albums Kartel has dramatically switched up (or, rather, down) his flow, increasingly backgrounding his rapping in favor of a ponderous, Auto-Tune-damaged tenor moaning over deflated, synth-heavy arrangements, coming on like Mavado's "On the Rock" for a post*-808s & Heartbreak* era. Pon Di Gaza in particular was so rigorously downbeat, grayscale, and bloody long that listening to the whole thing in one go felt like an absurd endurance test. But Kartel hasn't lost all contact with his erstwhile bad-boy self; on one-off tracks he still regularly comes as hard and fast as ever, and I suspect it's these more than recent albums that have protected his position at the top of dancehall's heap. Moreover, sometimes Kartel in downer mode can work fantastically. On the recent "Coloring Book", his oddly melancholy posturing captivates, as he boasts of his irresistibly tattooed skin over a gorgeously bittersweet concoction of piano chords and descending strings.
But "Coloring Book" doesn't grace Kartel's new album, Kingston Story, and there's precious little here that is nearly as enticing. It's as if Kartel has consciously rejected anything that's too dense, too wordy, too clearly casting him in the mold of DJ-as-rapper rather than universalist singjay. Which is a shame, because while Kingston Story is less exhaustingly morose than Pon Di Gaza, it's also more tepid, a conscientiously inoffensive collection both lyrically and sonically.
The thematic and stylistic range is established well enough on the first two tracks, the atmospheric and reflective "Jamaica" and the clattering dance-pop of "Beautiful Girl". If the becalmed stasis of the former signals Kartel's desire to transcend the role extroverted dancehall host, the latter just as clearly underscores the goal of seducing Western ears. This would all be well and good if these tunes were merely opening gambits on an album that struck a variety of poses, or at least continued to push these divergent directions into new territory. Instead they mark the outer limits of the venture, and while it's a compact album by dancehall standards Kingston Story starts to feel repetitive long before it winds down.
Subjected to the torments of Auto-Tune, Kartel's singing voice-- already somewhat weak and raspy, though that's hardly unusual for dancehall-- becomes a mournful, choked-up whimper, all the more incongruous for bleating out otherwise-upbeat protestations of sexual prowess. At times there's something compelling about this: On "Breathless", Kartel moans and whispers over a stark, beautiful arrangement of shimmering synths, ominous bass, and ghostly backing vocal effects, sorrowfully treading the sex/death tightrope where the flush of desire coincides with chilling presentiments of mortality. But for the most part Kingston Story is neither powerful nor distinctive enough for this sense of vulnerability to have much purchase.
Such timidity is particularly disappointing because it coincides with the most enthusiastic upswing in dancehall's embrace of the weird and the wired in nearly a decade. Dancehall's new trends need Kartel, who's always had the gravitas to keep his head and his flow even in the most arcane settings. He'd do well to rediscover his insouciance for a while.
