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Why, I kept thinking, did that “lil busta” get away with the first feel? I almost lapsed into one of those “back in the day” rants I hate so much. When Keri Hilson, on the other hand, says, “Now wait a minute lil busta / you got one more time to feel on my booty”, it undermines the “recognize a real woman” mantra that comes later. Besides the obvious sincerity in her delivery, the lyrics support her mission statement. It’s one thing for Aretha to sing about “respect”. It’s fun, to a certain degree, especially if you can avoid taking the “independent woman” declarations too seriously. Lyrically, the album sits well within the sassy-meets-flirty approach that has become the norm. There’s nothing wrong with familiar subject matter as long as our familiarity is given a fresh spin, either in sound or lyrical content. Hilson mining the usual topics of relationships (“Energy”, “Alienated”, “Knock You Down”), physical attraction (“Slow Dance”, “Turning Me On”), scrubs (the auto-tuned “Get Your Money Up”), and lovemaking (“Make Love”). Produced by Timbaland and Polow Da Don, two of the hottest producers around, In a Perfect World… finds Ms. But it’s true, evidenced by how typical the album sounds as a modern R&B release. To say that this prolific writer and sought-after singer sounds too much like the climate she helped to influence is kind of ironic. You know, too much attitude in the faster numbers and club bangers, and not enough musical or lyrical substance. Regarding In a Perfect World…, it’s a bit melodramatic in places and maybe a touch too hip for its own good. But her songwriting, whether for others or on her own release, isn’t particularly sweeping or breathtaking. Hilson has written songs for, and co-written songs with, a variety of artists, among them Omarion’s “Ice Box” and Britney Spears’s “Gimme More”. So, in a sense, if she “sounds like everybody else”, it’s partly because she, as songwriter and guest-vocalist-hook-lady has helped to define the parameters. The interesting part of this for Keri Hilson, the boomerang effect of it, is that she has contributed to the very musical climate against which In a Perfect World… is being compared. I’m talking about an aesthetic that’s in line with T-Pain and The-Dream, mixed with what you might call the “diva” spirit - sassy, flirtatious, and overflowing with attitude. By R&B, though, I don’t mean the Lalah Hathaway style, or even the type fashioned by Alicia Keys, Amel Larrieux, or Jill Scott. As a whole, the album suffers from an overriding sense of sameness, of mood as well as in relation to the current R&B landscape. Dreams.Īlong these lines, Keri Hilson’s In a Perfect World… presents an interesting conundrum that involves a type of boomerang effect. Even Solange Fierce found enough of a groove on her enjoyable retro Sol-Angel & the Hadley St. And, yeah, you read that “Solange” right. Beyoncé, Ashanti, Mya, Rihanna, Ciara, Cassie, Christina Milian, Teairra Mari, Solange, Keyshia Cole, Brooke Valentine, and Amerie - among others - have all fallen prey to blandness and predictability at one time or another.
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Setting aside physical appearance, since they do at least look noticeably different, it’s tough to listen to a song and distinguish one diva, or female version of a hustler, from another. But so many of our ladies inhabiting the “diva” strain of pop and R&B have an interchangeable sound. Oh sure, you can argue that nobody sounds like Sasha Fierce, and maybe Beyoncé has been, as she says in “Diva”, the “hottest chick in this game for a minute”. Unfortunately, they all sound alike! If you’ve heard one dancing “diva”, you can almost say you’ve heard them all. For every male “pimp”, “playa”, “boss”, and “mack”, there is presumably a lady of equivalent measure. The problem is that female hustlers seem to be just as anonymous and nondescript as their male counterparts. If I put aside the minor detail of why the word “hustler” has to be broken down into male and female versions, I can kind of dig the overall sentiment. When I hear Beyoncé - excuse me, “Sasha Fierce” - say “a diva is a female version of a hustler” over a bubbling stutter-stepping background, I’m inclined to believe her.