It can't be easy being an attractive, 18-year-old pop singer in a belly-buster shirt these days. What with all the Britneys, Christinas, Jessicas, and Mandys out there, a diva-in-training has to prove that she's got something different to offer. Dublin native Samantha Mumba currently faces this very dilemma, and that is perhaps why her press kit reads more like a justification of her existence than a résumé.
Mumba is already poised for success. Her debut single, "Gotta Tell You", hit the top of the charts in her native Ireland and the #2 spot in the UK. She's appeared on MTV's Total Request Live and on her own Disney Channel special. An upcoming role opposite Guy Pearce in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine can only heighten her profile. Still, the inevitable question gets asked: "What have you got that's so different?"
Perhaps it's the result of morbid curiosity on the part of interviewers that elicits this response, but the heart of Mumba's answer to that question seems to be that she's Irish and Black. For the benefit of anyone who hasn't read anything else about Samantha Mumba (because they would certainly know this already if they had), she is the daughter of an Irish mother and a Zambian father.
To rebut Mumba's strange argument, let me state that, while most Yankee kids might not be aware of it, the Emerald Isle has suffered no shortage of teen idols. Boyzone and Westlife have been massively successful, and Mumba is very much aware of this, as she shares a manager, Louis Walsh, with those groups. And race as an "angle"? Puh-leeze.
Thankfully, the third prong of Mumba's "Why I'm So Different" argument is that, unlike Britney et al, she writes her own material. That would be fabulous if it was entirely true, but Mumba's name is associated with only five of the 11 songs on Gotta Tell You, and on each of those songs she shares credit with at least two co-writers. Worse yet, one of the Mumba-less tracks was written by Diane Warren, whose schmaltzy ballads have graced albums by none other than Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
While providing these details might appear to be nothing more than Mumba-bashing, they are somewhat telling. What they tell us is that Mumba is trying so hard to deny that she is part of the teen pop movement that she surely must be lying. The proof, however, is in the proverbial pudding, and listening to Gotta Tell You does little to dispel the notion that Mumba is yet another teen queen.
Like other teen pop singers, Mumba dishes out A/C ballads ("Never Meant to Be"), R&B/dance hybrids (the title track), life lessons ("Don't Need You to Tell Me I'm Pretty"), and come-ons ("Baby, Come Over"). Unfortunately, she also commits the unforgivable crime of sampling the poignant addiction tale "Ashes to Ashes" in a song about hot sex. The musical misappropriation on "Body II Body" is the cruelest thing anyone's done to David Bowie since Vanilla Ice uttered the words "Ice, ice baby". Of course, Ice at least had the decency not to credit his piéce de merde to The Thin White Duke.
Mumba's debut album does have its virtues, most notably that it's short on sap, instead showcasing Mumba's somewhat husky voice on uptempo material. Bets can still be placed, however, on whether ten years from now she's a veteran entertainer or the subject of a Behind the Music episode.
