Of late there seems to be an awful lot of Jamaican reggae music, with its hypnotic, rock-influenced beat, around. Some of it is good, most of it bad, and so far I've heard only one recording in the well-mixed genre that I consider unique. It is Jimmy Cliff's even further hybridized new … release titled "Unlimited."…

Track after track, it burns with the intense heat of a tropic afternoon as Cliff kneads and molds the basic reggae sound into a completely contemporary and individual new form…. [Though] Jamaican reggae is not an extempore art, it sometimes sounds that way, perhaps because of its heavily vernacular lyrics and the homely nature of its subject matter: Cliff's Commercialization, for example, is a rough-cut gem about street life and street people, and Oh Jamaica is a yearning and genuinely touching anthem of affection for his Caribbean homeland.

I was alternately stirred, delighted...