TYRESE (A K A BLACK-TY)
“Alter Ego”
(J)
"Alter Ego" by Tyrese
Readers’ Opinions
The cover of Taylor Hicks's self-titled album.
Tyrese, a model-singer-actor, goes for one hyphen too many on “Alter Ego,” a double album split between slow-grind R&B songs and his newest job: rapper. The CD of songs continues Tyrese’s career-long homage to R. Kelly, with oozing minor-key synthesizer grooves and a variety pack of come-ons, from a marriage proposal (“One”) to a shrug at infidelity (“Better to Know”). Mr. Kelly produces one song and provides guest vocals on another, revealing how pallid Tyrese sounds by comparison.
On the rap CD, Tyrese renames himself Black-Ty, brags about his career, claims ghetto credibility and switches from suave importuning to raunchy demands. He sounds strained and whiny, but as one lyric points out, “I got plenty collabos.” Guest rappers like Snoop Dogg, David Banner, Kurupt and Method Man, and producers including Mannie Fresh and Scott Storch, arrive to prop him up. Is Method Man mocking him with lines like, “These silly rappers is really actors and swag-jackers yappin’ they lips”? After a while Tyrese mostly sings hooks while guests dominate the rhymes.
The album’s finale and title track is its goofy gem. Like some of Mr. Kelly’s split-personality songs, “Alter Ego” is a dialogue between the singing Tyrese and his determined inner rapper over potential career issues: whether setting aside sweet R&B for macho hip-hop might alienate female fans; how it’s much cheaper to record hip-hip than R&B; whether he could win a Grammy for singing his own hooks on his hip-hop tracks. Now that’s keeping it real. JON PARELES
TAYLOR HICKS
“Taylor Hicks”
(Arista/19 Recordings)
Like any underdog assuming elected office, Taylor Hicks finds himself on complicated footing with the release of his major-label debut. Mr. Hicks won “American Idol” this year at the hands (or text-messaging fingers) of a clear constituency: the Soul Patrol, a largely female fan army drawn to his throwback style, his gangly moves and, most of all, his uncorked exuberance. “Taylor Hicks” presents a much more calculated package. A potpourri of power pop and blue-eyed soul produced by Matt Serletic, the album feels like a product of some dutiful triangulation.
Naturally Mr. Hicks acknowledges influences like Ray Charles and Marvin Gaye (and implicitly Michael McDonald). But his stated predilection for old-school soul doesn’t find an outlet, except maybe on “Soul Thing,” one of two likeably lightweight originals repurposed from his last, self-released album. By contrast too much of the new stuff is competent and faceless; it might have been called radio-friendly in another time.
But Mr. Hicks wields his best asset skillfully, even — or perhaps, especially — when he’s straining against broad, balladic anthems like “Just to Feel That Way.” And his decision to perform a tune called “Gonna Move” by Paul Pena carries the sly implication that Mr. Hicks knows he can do better.
“Came to a school in the big city,” he sings in one verse of that song. “Looked around at the lights and I thought they were pretty.” That sounds like the journey of a certain “Idol” winner from Birmingham, Ala. (And no, it’s not Ruben Studdard.) In the next few lines Mr. Hicks realizes that “their rules wouldn’t let me sing my song,” and strikes out on his own. Is it a coded metaphor? Will Mr. Hicks really cast off his “Idol” affiliation in search of himself? The Soul Patrol will be watching, and waiting, to find out. NATE CHINEN
TRICK DADDY
“Back by Thug Demand”
(Slip-N-Slide/Atlantic)
For most of the last decade Trick Daddy’s truculent snarl has been the dominant sound of Miami hip-hop. But these days he’s got competition from the Cuban-American club favorite Pitbull, and also from Rick Ross, who makes himself out to be a Miami drug kingpin. The three biggest hip-hop stars in Miami got together earlier this year to record an ode to their hometown, “Born N Raised.”
Apparently civic pride is no match for the noncivic kind, though. Because throughout “Back by Thug Demand,” his seventh album, Trick Daddy sounds a bit irritable about the competition. With his ever-running mouth and his ever-blazing guns, he sounds downright Yosemite-Sam-ish. In the first verse of the first song, “Breaka Breaka,” he declares, “I run this whole state,” adding, “There’s only one mayor in Dade” (referring to Miami-Dade County); the other Miami rappers are merely protégés.
It’s by no means clear that this album will help Trick Daddy outsell his so-called protégés. It is arriving in shops tomorrow, even though he doesn’t have a hit single on the radio. And although Trick Daddy has scored a series of exuberant club hits, he doesn’t sound very celebratory now.
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