CD reviews

Jaheim, "The Making of a Man" (Atlantic)

Jaheim is an R&B singer with a rapper's image, and his lyrical persona is that of a thug with a sensitivity-training diploma. Almost every line on his fourth album sounds as if it's sung with a clock ticking. He has to start a new life, and he has no time to waste. He wants to convince one woman or another that he has turned good, that he doesn't think about just himself anymore.

It's a record about that moment -- turning 30, maybe -- when you take half-stock of your life, reckon what can or should be changed and calculate how much treachery you can allow yourself.

That conceit, and Jaheim's husky, feathery, Teddy Pendergrass-ish voice, keep "The Making of a Man" afloat through stretches of fairly routine songwriting and production. But it has good ideas, too. Jaheim updates Bobby Womack's complicated old song "If You Think You're Lonely Now" on "Lonely"; there are rudimentary horn arrangements here and there, in knowingly rough echoes of Philadelphia soul. And Jaheim writes verses spilling over with dilemma, delivering tough thoughts in silky rhythmic bursts.

BEN RATLIFF, NEW YORK TIMES

Scarface, "Made" (Rap-A-Lot)

The title of Scarface's first proper album in five years is a nod to godfather culture. Not surprisingly, the Houston rapper is going through a series of they-pull-me-back-in motions. But the passion is still there. Singles "Never" and "Girl You Know" coolly reject snitching and monogamy, respectively, while "Burn" recounts (yet another) cold-blooded murder with an eerie matter-of-factness. (Lucid storytelling is one of Scarface's many specialties, no matter how many times we've heard the story.) Like his best albums, "Made" is terse (under 45 minutes) and full of complete thoughts with songs whose abstract, one-word titles ("Go") barely hint at the revelations buried within.

MICHAEL POLLOCK, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

Jesse Dayton and Brennen Leigh,

"Holdin' Our Own and Other Country

Gold Duets" (Stag)

What the title says. Veteran guitarist Dayton and young bluegrass multi-instrumentalist Leigh go the full honky-tonk harmony route on classics of the genre and a lot of their own compositions that sound as if they ought to be classics. The best, most baroquely detailed cuts are the break-up or barely-managing-not-to songs, but it's not all drama (there's a nice cover of the eternal white-trash love novelty "Somethin' to Brag About"). She has the better voice, but they're a fine vocal fit. I wouldn't go so far as to say they'd be nothing without each other, but I sure am glad they got together. Hope it lasts awhile.

BOB STRAUSS, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS