The Maestro of reggae has a little something for everybody By David Gates A couple of publicists, a couple of journalists, his manager, a hovering waiter, a small Jamaican restaurant in Manhattan--not much of a gig for dancehall reggae's self-styled Maestro. But Beenie Man, slender, killingly handsome and dapper in a white suit, is a born performer. It's easy to see how this young Jamaican has become the dominant figure in dancehall, the rap-reggae hybrid that's displaced old-school reggae much as hip-hop has displaced soul. The tete-a-tete interview morphs into a seminar--he gives the death-ray stare when others start talking among themselves--and then into a Beenie Man infomercial, ending in an altar call. "You in yourself," he says to the dreadlocked young woman on his right, "who believe in black culture and black liberty, you want to hear black music, you come to a Beenie Man show. You in yourself"--to a bespectacled white guy--"who just love music overall, you can come to a Beenie Man show. You're a calypsonian, you come to a Beenie Man show. You listen to country and Western, where you gon' come?" The whole table choruses, "A Beenie Man show!" The Maestro nods, and gives his spacey trademark laugh. And he's not kidding about country music. Beenie Man (born Moses Davis) can allude to Puff Daddy and Dolly Parton within the same five minutes, and his latest album, "Many Moods of Moses," has one cut recorded in Nashville with fiddle and pedal steel--which turns out to be a rewrite of Alanis Morissette's "Hand in My Pocket." The disc also evokes "Lion King"-esque African vocal music and new-jack swing (a rewrite of Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative"). There's a calypso-inflected tribute to the South African martyr Steve Biko and collegial face-offs with dancehall rappers Buju Banton and Lady Saw. It's a Jamaican analogue of Beck's "Odelay"--both wildly eclectic and wildly popular--thanks mainly to the hit single "Who Am I?" which has been rocking dance clubs from Kingston to London to Brooklyn. "It went No. 1 all over the Caribbean," Beenie says. "It went No. 1 everywhere where you got a reggae market. It did well for just a little song from Jamaica." Last week Beenie Man had three of New York's top-10 dancehall singles, and "Who Am I?" was still No. 1. Beenie Man ("beenie" means "little") has been working up to this for 20 years--and he's only 24. His uncle was a percussionist for Jimmy Cliff; Beenie started performing at 3, had his first single at 8, his first album at 10. On the one hand, he looks at his calling with a working man's practicality: "I'm not a mechanic, not a lawyer, nothin'. I'm just a musician. so you're my employer. I am employee. I make music for you and you buy the music. That's how I get paid. That's the only job I know to do." On the other hand, his bread and butter is instinct and inspiration. "Who Am I?" ("Sim-simma/Who got de key to mi Bimma?") came about when he lost the keys to his BMW and heard a catchy beat on the radio of his Toyota Land Cruiser. Paradoxically, artistic restlessness has made him a popular entertainer; when Beenie talks about this, he drops into poetry. "You have to bring your fans with you. This is where I'm going, I leave my ways, I see those days, I see the sunset rays, I reach a stage, turn a new page, stand by me--where you goin'?" Only someone as many-sided as Beenie himself could buy into his whole trip. He's both a hot-tub hedonist and a Puritan warning against "filt'iness," and his Rastafarianism has paranoid nooks and crannies. ("Watch what you eat and smell what you drinkin'/'Cause in Geneva conference dey try to poison it.") And like any regional performer, he risks alienating his core fans by courting a wider audience. But Bob Marley's politics and religion didn't stop him from being a world superstar, and his international stature didn't lose him points at home. In borrowing inspiration from anywhere and everywhere, Beenie Man is in the mainstream of pop tradition. And for now, the farther his musical travels take him, the more new fans are following. Newsweek 6/22/98 The Arts/ Music: The Many Moods of Beenie Man