Some call him a savior, while others say sellout. Whichever you believe -- and right now, there are lots more votes for the first option -- it's clear that dancehall whiz Baby Cham is going places, fast. And the guy they call Mr. Wow is bringing reggae with him, whether it wants to come or not. "You have to think on a wide scale. You can't be lookin' just from your eyes to your nose," says Cham. "You have to be lookin' down the road, cause that's where it's at." Just hours before his debut album is set to drop in America, Cham's sitting in a Big Apple hotel room looking down that road, sounding quietly confident as cell phones jolt into life. Maybe it's because he doesn't have a lot to explain: the double album, called Wow … The Story, on Artists Only Records, lays out his agenda pretty clearly. The first disc collects a dozen of Cham's biggest Jamaican boomshots from the past few years, making it a valuable souvenir for reggae fanatics. But it's the second disc, dubbed "Another Level," that makes Cham's plan explicit. It might be the slickest fusion of rap and reggae ever attempted, and it aims straight for America's hip-hop heart. "A lotta people are gonna say 'sellout.' But in the last, down the line, they're gonna be the same ones who are gonna compliment," says Cham. "They're not gonna find themselves not be able to stop playin' the CD. They can't 'elp it. If you make a good song, it's good song, without even categorizin'." That philosophy comes straight from Cham's producer, mentor and alter ego, Dave Kelly, the hottest knob-twiddler in Jamaica. The guy Cham calls his "big brother" has had also plenty of success on the island, and is hungry for a bigger market. "Dave Kelly's belief is that it doesn't have to be the regular dancehall, or the regular reggae, to be reggae. Not just the regular 'toonk, toonk,' the regular beat," says Cham. "His belief is whatever the music needs to get it to that level, then you need to be doin' it." Of course, that means using modified hip-hop beats, as well as American guests like Foxy Brown. That's natural for Cham, who grew up listening to Biggie and Snoop alongside the dancehall hits of the day, and idolizes Dr. Dre and DMX. But there's another crucial concession to the U.S. market: at Kelly's suggestion, Cham has toned down the heavy patois that can puzzle even hardcore reggae fans. "Right now the music's in a circle. It's at one point, and it hasn't been movin' for a long time," says Cham. "And for it to change, you have to be able to understand what we are sayin'." That has self-styled defenders of "roots" howling the loudest, but Cham points out that he's not the only guy to use the trick. 1 | 2 | 3