Consumer Guide Album

Lucky Dube: Slave [Shanachie, 1989]
A South African who's studied his Bunny Wailer, Dube thinks reggae is "the one and only type of music that will bring black people back to their roots (where they belong)." I don't. But he earns his stylistic fundamentalism: the shared r&b affinities of JA and S.A. deepen his groove, "I'm just a slave, a legal slave" overtaxes no metaphor, and the transcendent falsetto of "How Will I Know" conquers all. B+