Midnite Lover, the follow-up to
Shaggy's career-making Boombastic, doesn't have anything as memorable as that album's title track or his dancehall reworking of "Oh Carolina," but that hardly makes the album a failure. It's a consistently entertaining collection of ragga from one of the leaders of the genre. There is a bit too much sexism for some, but even "Sexy Body Girls" has one of the best beats on the record, and the title cut has a supremely funky hip-hop rhythm. It's hard to excuse the ridiculous cover of
Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart," but his version of
Bob Marley's "Thank You Lord" (featuring vocals by
Ky-Mani Marley) shows that there's more to
Shaggy than bumping and grinding. ~ Leo Stanley