Benjamin Zephaniah, ‘Naked’
You are more likely to have seen Benjamin Zephaniah on the pages of your GCSE poetry anthology than the shelves of HMV, unless you are extremely unlucky. Mr Zephaniah is the man who famously refused Her Majesty’s offer of an OBE, so you would expect this album to be invigorated with the gusto of a rebel heart and a poet’s intelligence. But as Zephaniah proudly declares on the title track Naked, “I love being naked. I look at my naked self and know that I was made for nakedness”, hopes of a revolutionary fusion between garage-reggae and profound poetic expression are abandoned. Quickly.
Using silky garage beats and discussing street topics that would make Snoop Dogg proud, Zephaniah is trying to be down with the kids. Tracks like Slow Motion tackle more serious issues such as racial oppression but by this point the album has become so musically lethargic that Zephaniah will be lucky if anyone is still awake. And as he tries to convince on Superstar that he is still true to his roots, you can’t help thinking J-Lo said it better.
As journalists last year labelled Mike Skinner a literary virtuoso, genuine literary virtuoso Benjamin Zephaniah has this year decided to become the Jamaican Mike Skinner. Unfortunately, just as Mike Skinner is no Shakespeare, Benjamin Zephaniah falls flat on The Streets.
