By Fawn Renee
Disclaimer: This is not a Hip-Hop record. I repeat: this is NOT a Hip-Hop record. Instead, this is a fruitless attempt at breaking into the Hip-Hop scene under the guise of electro-pop.
Hooking up with Kanye West’s tour DJ makes one no more the future of the female rap game, than signing with Bad Boy secures your career. It seems Chicago native Melissa Young, widely known as Kid Sister, will have to learn that the hard way. Not that anyone expected her to be the saving grace of the barren realm of female rap, but after a co-sign from Kanye, gracing URB’s “The Next 1000″ cover in April 2007, and three years in the studio, one would expect a debut album of superior quality by today’s standards. Instead, listeners are fed an earful of pulsating, synthetic beats and lackluster rhymes.
Kid Sister first gained widespread popularity with the release of her debut single “Pro Nails” in 2007, which featured a cameo from Kanye West himself. The song quickly went viral, spreading like wildfire on every music blog and urban radio station in the country. Unfortunately, that moment in history would serve as the apex of Young’s career thus far, as her debut album Ultraviolet offers nothing that transcends “Pro Nails” in lyrical prowess or mass appeal (and that’s setting the bar pretty low). What’s presented is 40 minutes of nasal rhyming dancing atop mind numbing house beats, with heavy Chicago electro-soul influence; an album that could have easily been crafted in someone’s home studio over the course of one drunken night. I suppose this is why she’s signed to DJ A-Track’s label and not West’s. He may be a little off, but he isn’t stupid.
The primary theme of Ultraviolet is ‘party and bullshit.’ While she touches on subjects of substance once or twice, she inevitably resorts to the riveting party life of clubs, guys, dancing and drinking. Not that this is much different from what anyone else is talking about these days, but, again, one expects so much more from the hard-rock that grew up on the Southside of Chicago, amidst poverty and crime. The Dr. Phil in me wants to give her the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe she’s grown accustomed to using music as her happy place, where everything is fun and carefree. The music critic in me doesn’t allow me to reconcile that, and cannot condone sacrificing quality for the sake of escaping your past.
While I would typically point out songs of note that are particularly good listens (or bad listens), it would serve no purpose here, as the album does not reach a climax or a decline. Even with features from Estelle, Cee-Lo and West, Ultraviolet manages to stay anticlimactic throughout all 12 tracks. That’s not to imply boredom, because if there’s anything bad the album lacks, it’s boredom. It’s high energy. It’s fun. It’s playful. But that’s all.
One of the albums rare jewels is the track “You Ain’t Really Down,” where, for the first time, we hear a 29 year old woman singing about something of substance- love and relationships. The song’s production employs a syncopated melody, with 80s inspired background vocals, that distances it from the rest of the album in quality. Had she employed this formula for the rest of the album, it could have very well been worth 40 minutes of your time. It’s too bad we can’t always get what we want; Looks like the spot atop the female Hip-Hop throne is still up for grabs.
out of 5
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