Beyond Labor Pains

In the gathering of accomplished R&B musicians, Syleena Johnson is worthy of mention. Not just because she is has a heritage rich in music (as her father was Syl Johnson), but that she has carved for herself a niche in the genre in which she practises.

Her albums, for one, have been a musical documentation of experiences that draw deeply from love, relationships and other emotional details. And from the names she gives each effort, it seems she is penning the draft of a book and releasing them in instalments/chapters. To her credits are four chapters that plumb the recesses and permutations of emotional scenarios, and for the benefit of this review, I will write about the fourth chapter.

Chapter four is subtitled Labor Pains, and we have an opening interlude which is a rather unnecessary parody of Syleena’s acoustic plight as it negotiates its way through her birth canal. And there is another interlude worthy of mention, Redstorm Domestic Lesson, a spoken word session, which reprimands men who make women subservient to them. Very sympathetic to the female cause and 21st century-ish.

What I find remarkable about Syleena’s music is her depth. R&B is generally regarded as the genre that takes into account every gritty detail of emotion but Syleena liberates her brand and plunges it beyond the coffers of soft sentimental droll.

After listening to Labor Pains severally, I could marry the title, which I initially found rather unapt, into the core message and the looming theme that string most, if not every, song on this album together. Her Labor Pains extends beyond the gamut of a parturient; it morphs into a collective noun that capsulate the history and the reality of being black. The album confronts what it entails to be female, black and human respectively. Without being overly didactic, this album explores previous black experiences with much newer accounts and marries them together on the altar of Soul.

Easily, Syleena becomes the officiating chorister who sings into the depth of being black and her arsenal is not only her distinct voice, she also draws from the culture of Chicago blues. This album is tainted with the unmistakable quaint feel of the blues of yesteryears and this is perhaps why its reach would not extend beyond the hearts of true music lovers. It reaffirms that this album would not spill into pop charts or become an essential radio song.

Although there is the issue of unevenness of quality of the featured songs, this helps to jar at the hearts of Syleena lovers who would forgive rather dismissively. And one last thing, this album would be fondly remembered.

A man's thoughts and Mine.

A sixth studio album is no lean feat; it proves that whoever is on the other side of the speaker has consistency and substantial following as propellers. Well, Ginny as a lot more than that. He is a married father, “small town” dancing crooner with a lot of regard for his fans, hence each effort follows the slant of his musical career—not careening, just a slow lilt—and a rather remarkable thing about the guy is that he doesn’t have the delusion of the great R & B album being in his rather under-utilised vocal cords.
A Man’s Thoughts, no doubt, draws from previous efforts: upbeat tracks that necessitate slow movement, great love songs with a tinge of erotica and bland interludes. Personally, I think, Ginuwine should learn a lot from Carl Thomas whose interludes are short songs that sometimes outwit full-length songs in his album. It is worthy of note that these interludes are no audio movies, unlike The Senior.
I am biased to Ginuwine. I think his song writing is crappy, very below par in terms of intellectual engagement, but music is not “writing”, what makes a song or an album is appeal. A good album must appeal to several human conditions. I have found out that we humans attach songs as memory aids often.
So what do we have in this album other than good love songs that you can croon on the bed or in the car: nothing. But that should suffice, after all the album holds a shelf slot in the R & B department, the most mawkish of all contemporary music genres, and the direct consequence is that it must appeal to the lover, the loved and the bed.
Trouble is a great track, upbeat and all, but Orchestra is a personal fav(actually reminds me of someone). The song blows me away every time, the lyrics holds water. Show me the way has some recurring cords that surface in the most bizarre places e.g toilet. This album can best be described as a long playing continuum with several spots of brilliance and the rest is at best accounted for by mediocrity.
Anyway, I like it.

Has Carl Found His Voice Yet?

Unarguably, Carl Thomas remains my best soul singer. This is can be wholly attributed to the artistic success of the Emotional Album, especially his track Summer Rain. But beyond that, Carl has a penchant for making good music. Good music being the kind of music that appeals to several experiences. Thus, his albums are eclectic in their outreach and, even though his genre of music is loosely based on emotion, Carl distinguishes himself as consummate professional.
Born in Aurora, Illinois, Carl left home, hiking to New York in his quest for fame and fortune, with his impressive vocal skills as the only item on his résumé. Lines fell in pleasant places for him when he met with P.Diddy, a renowned talent scout who could seek a pearl in a sprawling landscape of garbage.
Under the Bad Boy Label, Carl released his debut album, Emotional, in 1999 which met with widespread approval and impressive record sales—it even went platinum. I still listen to Emotional even though ten years has passed since its release. What draws me into this album is its originality. The blend of Carl’s fusion is so complete that it’s hard to decipher who he sounds like, hence his authencity. Great tracks abound in that album, in fact every song as the temperament and occasion it suits. And on a whole, it’s a smooth, long ride down the alleys of acoustic perfection.

Let’s Talk About It, his sophomore effort released in 2004, heralds a completely different experience. It’s definitely a more urban album designed to appeal to a larger fan base. This, of course, is an ingenious attempt of Carl’s Record Label at making more money under the auspices of catapulting Carl into renowned fame. Carl produced another eclectic fusion, but of Urban R and B and soul music, a mixture that had only been attained by few, even then grossly by serendipitous experimentation.
The initial swing with which the record begins is wild and rather than sustain the thumping beats courtesy successful American hit makers, Carl ingeniously sways into his usual slow tempo to deliver tracks reminiscent of the good, old, balladic Emotional days. However as fate would have it, Carl had to back out of the promotional tour of his second album when he heard the news of his brother’s death from an accidental drive-by shooting.
In an interview, he said, he sort of “lost his voice”. The loss of a close relative is no joke. And I sincerely empathesize with his grief. It was a good reason to remove himself from further musical endeavours and creep into the warmth of family to dissolve the hurt. That move also sort of thwarted his producer’s attempt at making a global hit out of Let’s Talk About it. And it turned the hype of the album to the barest minimum.
Perhaps it is the admixtures of all these scenarios that led to Carl’s exit from the Bad Boy Label. Carl left on the premise that he was not afforded the creative liberty he was awarded for his debut album on his second, and so launched into another record label, where, hopefully, he would become the captain of his musical career sail.
The result of this detachment from his custodian of fame produced another album in 2007 titled So Much Better. Like the name suggests, So Much Better, was a sincere declaration of liberty being more acceptable in comparison to his stilted stint at Bad Boy. Hence So Much Better, fashioned out primarily as a Mix Tape, became an experimental project that showcased Carl in his most sublime state.
Sincerely, So Much Better is a good album, with the usual spectrum of emotional range, with less executive intrusion, and is perhaps a sincere tribute to Carl’s temperament. I Thought Should Know, is a noteworthy love song, Oh No is a successful experimentation of soul with reggae, replete with the “marleian” feel. Home is an unbridled emotional avalanche on the importance of family, and signature interludes, usually unfinished songs, abound in this effort. But missing is Spoken Word poetry blended with rhythms, a feature on his previous albums, and the interludes are disappointedly shabby, lacking the usual lustre and feel brimming in his previous efforts.
On the whole, I was not convinced that Carl had gotten his voice back since the unfortunate incident of his brother’s death. I was also confused with whether to ascribe the failure of So Much Better entirely to the experimental basis of the effort or the poor publicity services proffered by his new Record Label. However, I would rest my case till Carl hits the stores again with another album.