Colah Colah - Togetherness (Elevation Records/Basco Record Production)

Where the titles of his albums are concerned, the singjay from Kingston likes a good word game and basically 'Togetherness' could just as well have been called 'Colah Colah And Friends'. For this album Colah Colah recycled four songs from his previous album 'Unstoppable' and rerecorded them accompanied by one or more guests. Other artists were also invited to records a version over one of the four riddims, and that eventually yielded four sets of five songs. The guest list of 'Togetherness' features familiar faces like Luciano, Mikey General, Andrew Tosh, Natural Black and Natty King, but also a lot of "aspiring talents", given an opportunity by Colah Colah to reach an international audience. In that last category we were most taken with Kandi Man, who, together with Colah Colah, recorded the anti-tobacco statement 'No Cigarette', and Lady EQ, who, as the only female vocalist on the album, more than stands her ground in 'Hail Up His Majesty'. The weak point of 'Togetherness', are the riddims though: the re-lick of Dennis Brown's 'Get Myself Together' can still convince, but Askel's version of the classic Smile riddim is a real disappointment. One of Colah Colah's more mediocre productions to date.