"Out Of Many One"

The Tami Chynn album “Out Of Many One” is out at last,…well sort of. Seems to be some sort of distribution problem here in the U.S. It is available now in Europe but hasn’t “officially” been launched on this side of the pond. Strange? Universal couldn’t be crazy enough to not release it here. I know they have been disappointed with the lack of excitement for the single releases generated over the past 10 months, but to cut their losses and move on now would be very cruel to Tami’s camp. But then again such is the music business, they love you then abandon you. Maybe they will just push back the real U.S. release another few weeks, hoping some sort of buzz will pick up between now and then.

Anyway back to the album; I got to hear a copy from England last night and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. I thought that given the height of the bar that Tanya Stephens just set last week with her Rebelution release that this listen would be a waste of time. But no, it wasn’t bad at all. Light,fluffy material yes, but still quite impressive. Yes 6 out of the 17 tracks have already been released and just put out there for John Public to hitch on to (that never quite happened), but as is the norm with Jamaican debut albums, half of the material is past singles that we the local audience have already proven as road worthy. That is an accepted practice and is expected as our music basically thrives on a singles-based market.

Besides the fact that Tami is very easy on the eyes (and photographs very well), the album is well composed and written. Time was put into this production. It still does sound quite Pro Tools ish, meaning it sounds somewhat like a mic and a Mac production. Anyway still a good effort by new production duo South Soul and Tami’s sister Tesanne. “Hyperventilating”, “Looky Looky”, “Hot!”, “Tell mi Seh” we all know and are decent songs. The first should have been a real hit for her. Universal’s tight pockets are to blame for that. The latest single 1-2-3-4 also has hit potential, but they will probably put a minimum effort behind that also, only depending on the Tami camp to beat the street and b-grade concert circuit to death. Either the big five companies don’t know how to or simply don’t want to market Caribbean music, and I think it is a combination of both. They just prefer to piggy back on an obvious hit that needs no real money to push it forward. That is what they were hoping to get from Tami during the past year. There is also an album “Intro” that really is slick in a good way and reminiscent of 70’s soul album instrumental themes. “Bliss Is” is a good laid back track, “Can U Feel Me” is good easy reggae and so is “Till U Come”. There are two remixes that of course sound much catchier than their originals: Looky, Looky (Tony Kelly remix) that has to be released on a single, that will sell!! And then there is Hyperventilating (TOK remix) that sounds pretty good too, but I think it might be too late to try and resurrect that one..

Overall we all know her voice is not anything to write home about. But the good thing about that is they have sort of produced and written “around” that fact and made her vocals sound good enough for the given task. It is a fairly good debut. Unless a single really takes off from this CD though it will only be known to us in reggae circles. Universal is looking for another Rihanna or a female Sean Paul from from Tami, but she is cutting another path. If they start acting as though she can walk on water again, like they were doing 18 months ago, AND put some real funds behind her release, that path can become very lucrative for them.