We knew Eddie Murphy had a decent set of lungs ever since he played the role of Donkey in Shrek, but now he’s released a reggae track to prove it.
Murphy seems to have temporarily ditched the movie career in favour of pursuing a musical one, and he isn’t awful either. The track, called Oh Ja Ja features a fairly simple guitar sequence, but it is nicely composed. The lyrics are also surprisingly sweet. Paired with a wonderfully tacky, homemade music video, you could almost picture Oh La La coming out in the 80s, as one of Bob Marley’s earlier works. Almost.
And in case you were wondering, this isn’t Murphy’s first musical endeavour. In 1992 he did a rather off-putting track with Shabba Ranks, I was a King, and in 2013 he released Red Light, a collaboration with Snoop Dog (or Snoop Lion, as he now prefers to be called). It’s hard to know whether his latest project is an indicator of more music to come, or if Murphy was just having a bit of fun.
We do know that he currently has a film called Cook in post-production, and three more that have been announced, so he hasn’t ditched the movie gig entirely. It’s a bit of a shame really, I would have liked to see Eddie Murphy become a Reggae star.