The "New" Kalonji
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Kalonji began to garner more negative attention in the late 90's due to the release of "slack" tunes, which were sexually grapic in nature such as "Pump Up Her Pum Pum" and others too numerous to mention. Previously, Kalonji was known as a strictly "roots" artiste and many of his hardcore fans were let down by Kalonji's seemingly raunchy lyrics. Kalonji ushered a simple explaination when confronted with this criticism by simply explaining that, "Man and woman are the natural order of things. Man and woman bring forth life." He would also issue this line of reasoning in response to later criticism of gay rights groups.
The release of sexually graphic material marked another turning point in Kalonji's career because it added a dimension of versatility. He began to record on more "hardcore" dancehall beats that are seemingly contrary to the "roots" music and also began to denounce homosexuality frequently in his songs.
Kalonji soon became an anomaly due to his unparalleled versatility and it became difficult to classify his music within reggae itself. This trend has continued to this day, as he has experimented with jazz and rhythm and blues with a great degree of success. In addition, his vocal range is unmatched, but that does not inhibit pretenders from trying to imitate Kalonji's vocal style. In fact, Kalonji is one of the most imitated artistes in reggae. His falsetto voice is notewothy and he moves effortlessly between sweet falsetto flows, rap, and his more trademark, harsh, gruff voice.
While Kalonji was experimenting with different aspects of the music at that time, he also enrolled at the University of Technology in St. Andrew, where he studied architecture, again proving that he unlimited in the sense that he is not only limited to making songs. In fact, Kalonji is a man with some very powerful reasoning abilitites as well as a very acute business acumen.
