Ky-mani Adds to His Dad’s Musical Legacy

Bob Marley didn’t invent reggae. He broadened it, perfected it and made it real to listeners thousands of miles from the Trenchtown ghettos of Kingston, Jamaica. It was a deeply musical approach, with messages soulful and profound.

That’s a heavy legacy for any of the late reggae master’s dozen children to follow. And many have tried, with scion Ziggy Marley winning fans and even Grammy awards along the way.

But looking to musical offspring to pick up where Dad left off surely leads to disappointment; later generations are often just a pleasant echo of the past. But Ky-mani Marley clearly aspires to more, as concert-goers learned at his performance Tuesday night at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano.

Ky-mani (who uses only his first name) showed that while he has mastered his father’s sound, he isn’t limited by it. His other musical interests shine through in a musical vocabulary that is rich, passionate and uncomplicated.

“They say that Bob Marley’s children only know about reggae music,” Ky-mani told the mostly younger crowd. “No. We know about more than that, and we’re here to prove it.”

In many ways Ky-mani is a traditionalist, often reaching back toward Marley’s instantly recognizable blueprint for that diamond-hard rhythm, a tight blend of keyboards, guitar, bass and drums. But at the Coach House, he also slipped easily into a warm mix of reggae and R&B; for “Fell in Love,” a song that was relaxed and emotionally urgent.

Later, Ky-mani and his five-man band (plus two female backup singers) also dove into acoustic-based balladry and songs with an unmistakable hip-hop groove, a gutsy move in front of a mostly reggae audience. But Ky-mani was not locked into basic reggae any more than his father was.

Bob Marley found inspiration by pushing his beloved reggae in new directions, a musical journey cut short when he died of cancer in 1980.

This year also saw Ziggy Marley branch out into some folk-flavored soul on his new “Spirit of Music” album, and he subsequently faced some criticism from within the hard-core reggae world. Ky-mani’s debut album, “The Journey,” explores some similar territory, but with a sound of his own.

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The second-youngest of Marley’s children, Ky-mani, 23, makes music rooted in reggae, but without ever seeming tired. Bearded, and with dreadlocks hanging down to his chest, he was an energetic, charismatic front man at the Coach House. By the end of the night, his green shirt was soaked with sweat.

Ky-mani has an emotional, expressive voice, even if his lyrics weren’t always decipherable in the live setting.

“I lost my father when I was 5 years old, so I didn’t get to know him as much as I would like to,” Ky-mani said, as he began a tribute to Marley called “Dear Dad.”

The song was fittingly set across a hard reggae beat, as Ky-mani sang, “I love you, I miss you, my brothers and sisters do too. . . . I wish you were here.”

A later medley of his father’s music was more about crowd-pleasing than following his own muse. It was well-played but hardly necessary from an artist with ideas of his own.

Still, it was an indulgence that was hard to resist, particularly when he closed his 90-minute set with a fiery reading of his father’s “Rebel Music.” Not a reenactment, but a new force to be recognized and remembered.