The King of Zouk

Under the somewhat presumptuous title of The King of Zouk, Luc Leandry, one of the Debs' studio regulars, delivers one of his strongest albums. It is chock-full of poker-hot zouk and will not disappoint fans who favor zouk beton, or hard-edged zouk, over zouk love. He gets help here on vocals from Kassav's Jean Philippe Marthely, Marie Celine Chrone, and Jean Luc Alger. Luc Leandry's career has spanned 20 years and during that time he has recorded 20 albums. Leandry is without a doubt a major zouk star who has been making great music to dance to since the zouk eruption of the 1980s. On this album he seems to have coalesced much of the energy driving his music and put it on one album. Some of his releases prior to this effort were a little uneven in terms of songwriting and dynamic factors. The King of Zouk puts it all together on one disc. There is a neo-traditional opening track that is a potpourri of folk songs treated in an up-tempo style. The rest of the tracks are Leandry compositions. There's no filler here. The rest of the album puts out lots of steam and is aimed directly at dancers. It succeeds with Antillean aplomb in transmitting that indomitable swing to the hips and feet of the audience. He may not be the king of zouk, but he's definitely on the ballot for that office and one of the frontrunners. Highly recommended.