ON THE spoken introduction to Jesus, the opening song on his Preparation Time CD, King Arthur sounds remarkably like Papa San. It is a similarity which continues as he gets past a repetitive (and close to annoying) 'Jesus' and deejays in question and answer style "who de devil tempt when him was fasting?" among other questions.
There are no prizes for guessing the answer, OK.
Sound-alike. Repetition. Same old, same old approach to same old, same old topic. Not a good start for a 14-track album (12, actually, as the last two are music only versions of two songs). But not typical of the entire set, on which King Arthur employs myriad voices and consistently, though not exclusively, challenges his fellow faithful to raise the spiritual bar, resulting in a more than competent though not over-the-top album.
This is a man of many voices. The rugged deejaying and near dub poetry on Jesus is followed by laid-back singing on Expression, then a more melodic style of deejaying in Don't Rejoice. Then he sings - actually sings, though not the world's greatest - on Mama, cuts loose in real bashment deejay fashion on Lift Up Jesus and restrains his voice suitably to sing the ska style Open The Eyes.
Lyrically, there are just so many ways you can give praises, so lyrics are competent though in the main not outstanding as he lists a slew of pastors, from Al Miller to Jimmy Swaggart, on No Competition and urges "while Stitchie a pray fi di entertainer/Make di whole a wi pray fi de res' a Jamaica" on Prayer Time.
One of the smarter turns of phrase actually comes in the spoken introduction to Act Professional, where Arthur says "God call chicken, but he don't keep them, so you have to raise up with wings of eagles".
What is very interesting, though, is the number of times King Arthur challenges and criticises the Church and those who kneel and clap therein. It first comes on track four Glory ("certain things wey a gwaan in de church it no pretty/In de sight of God dem is well ugly/Mi think de message of salvation was suppose to be free/But it's been commercialised an a sell fi money"), comes again in Full Time Now ("Yu see the church has become too materialistic/an' de whole place full a pure evangelis'" and hits hard in Act Professional ("you have some Christian who cannot be trusted/if Christ did stay like man nuff a dem would be wanted").
Uncompromising stuff indeed.
The Kings Music release is distributed by Jet Star.
- Mel Cooke
