Time to Share

Still a sensation in his homeland of Japan, Toshi Kubota — who has now dropped his last name, most likely to eliminate some preconceived notions — continued to chase success in the U.S. with Time to Share, an album that boasts help from fans Angie Stone, Mos Def, and Native Tongues member Ali Shaheed Muhammad (producer of A Tribe Called Quest, D'Angelo, Ice Cube). It's been four years since his last domestic release, the accomplished Nothing but Your Love, but it's doubtful that the results — no chart hits, some light video rotation — will be any different this time out. Time to Share is another fine album, but the mainstream R&B acts continue to get younger and younger; the material is too mature and laid-back to appeal to more than attentive contemporary R&B fans in their late twenties and thirties. And that's not a knock on the artist.