Sean Kingston Artist: SEAN KINGSTON Genre: Hip Hop(Epic/Sony BMG) Reviewer: DAMELIA AJLA IF I have to listen to Beautiful Girls one more time, I swear I’m going to barf. However, that’s really the fault of radio stations playing the same nine songs all day long. Jonathan “J.R.” Rotem who signed the 17-year-old sensation to his fledgling label and produced the entire album, reconstructed the classic soul song Stand By Me to fit Kingston’s Jamaican-accented style. Kingston is surprisingly mature for a teenager and it’s clearly evident in this single; he undercuts a thoroughly teenage pop premise with lines about incarceration and a chorus about suicide. The album begins with the booming bass of Kingston, a high-volume track that features this baby-faced young man rapping with a Jamaican-infused accent. Like Beautiful Girls, the pop-leaning reggae record also chomps through other past top 40 songs. Me Love (which already threatens to be Kingston’s next big single) samples Led Zeppelin’s D’yer Maker, while I Can Feel It is a strangely charming rework of Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight. Another single to check out is Dry Your Eyes, a tribute to his imprisoned real-life ‘‘mom’’. I really think Kingston sounds like a pre-pubescent Akon. I may not be so appreciative of this particular hip-hop/reggae album, but it’s obvious to me that this Jamaican kid is a step away from substantial pop success in the near future.
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