Subject

by

Dwele

Edit

I have been hearing some of Dwele's work here and there through guest tracks on other artist CDs. Every track he seemed to be on (Slum Village, T-love), the joints were hot.

So when I bought the CD, I had a picture in my mind of what I was expecting since I never even heard a single out for this album. I was expecting it to be pretty good not getting my hopes up too much.

Open package..put in CD..first track on...a little talking going on (expected in intros). Then the beat kicks in. Its hard to explain but this beat has to be one of the cleanest, tightest, whatever -est word I cant think of i have heard in a good while. Its the type of beat that makes you pick up your CD and take out the cover to see who produced this gem. Personally, I was thinking Jay Dee because it had the styling of a Jay Dee beat. I was taken aback by the fact that it was Dwele who produced his own joint. Back to the Intro..Dwele comes on with his playeristic flow, which blends perfectly to the bass heavy beat. This is surely a joint that could hold its own in a club or in constant playback mode on your own CD player and its only the intro.

As track by track went by, I had no urge to press the skip track button once. There are many gems on this album. To name a few: "A.N.G.E.L. w/ Slum Village", "Subject", and "Poppa Yo (Intro)". I could go on and on about this album but you should cop this yourself and find more.

The only complaints I can really think of is that Dwele's lyrics are not "deep" like some people would like them to be. Personally, I can do without the deepness.

I can easily say this is the best album I have bought this year in terms of R&B and the best since D'Angelo and Bilal.

Slum Village was one of the more critically lauded alternative rap outfits of the new millennium, but it won its praise for the production, not the rhymes. That credit rightfully goes to boards-man extraordinaire Jay Dee, whose tough beats and jazzy grooves often overshadowed lyrics that were startlingly clunky and slathered with misogyny. Buried within Fantastic Vol. 2 and their sophomore effort Trinity, there was a crooner who made intermittent appearances on tracks like "Tainted." His name was Dwele and he was a pretty good singer, but that hardly mattered because he always felt more like a piece of the smooth production than a bona-fide lyricist.

Dwele's debut album, Subject, shows him breaking out of secondary status to carry his own. The objective: retain the soulful Dilla-esque production lent to Fantastic Vol. 2 while trading harder lyrics for more thoughtful and romantic ones, and for the most part it works. One part hip-hop, one part jazz and one part `70s-harkening neo-soul, Subject is cool and laid-back, with just enough of an attitude to keep heads moving. It starts out on the right foot with Poppa Yo, an extended introduction that's actually one of the album's strongest numbers. A pulsing beat, understated jazzy keyboards and Dwele's sly, low-register messages of "Ladies grab your dresses if you want to / shimmy-shake your foot like you're supposed to" let the listener know that Subject is rooted primarily in hip-hop. The intro spills over into "Truth," a winner of a track sporting Dwele's creative vocal content and delivery, backed by upright bass and a driving beat that recalls the work of Jay Dee with remarkable acumen. Elsewhere, Subject is generally a mellow affair, but there's enough variation between hard and soft to make things interesting.

Not everything on Subject works, however. "Hold On" and "Without You" are rote, mid-tempo jams while "Money Don't Mean a Thing" sounds like Dwele's shot at a single, ready for the radio. It's by far the most structured song on the album, abandoning the loose, flowing qualities of jazz in favor of a flat 4/4 meter and acoustic guitar riff that irritates well before its 3:30 runtime. Some of the music tends to sound a bit same-y with repeated listens, especially during the latter half of the CD, since the grooves are always ultra-chilled and Dwele's tasteful vocal deliver doesn't really change much from track to track. Fortunately, the weaker songs are the exception, not the rule; Subject serves up far more hits than misses in its ambitious 16-track lineup. The album shines most when Dwele keeps things loose and relaxed, and that style seems to be where his heart resides, boding well for an even greater expression of his methods down the line.