This past week marked the release of hip-hop artist Usher’s sixth studio album, Raymond v. Raymond. Usher (n?e Usher Raymond IV) recently split up from his wife of two years, stylist Tameka Foster. Not surprisingly, the album title is a reference to the movie Kramer v. Kramer, which is about divorce.
As a result, Raymond is not only chock-full of the crooning love ballads Usher has banked on in previous albums, but also contains a set of surprisingly candid tracks indicative of his turbulent personal life.
Raymond also contains a central theme, though whether the theme was intentional is subject for debate. Pretty much every track on the album features some sort of general message about being in a club with women, wanting to be in a club with women or just women.
While it might seem that this lack of subject diversity would work to his disadvantage, these are exactly the types of songs Usher does best. And in light of his recent divorce, he is able to approach the subject of women in a whole new manner.
At first Usher is indignant; his track “Guilty,” which features T.I., is clearly an un-apologetic response to anything he has been accused of lately, singing “I guess I’m guilty for leaving and having a little fun/ Girl I’m guilty for that girl I’m guilty/ Don’t take me to jail.”
Yet woven between the angry jabs at his ex-wife and poppy, thoughtless anthems to hot women are several tracks that give the listener a peek into Usher’s inner monologue and thoughts on his personal life. Sandwiched between “Foolin’ Around” and “So Many Girls feat. Diddy,” is the much slower and relatively gloomy ballad “Papers.”
“I’m ready to sign them papers, papers, papers/ I done took all I can take, but you leave me no options girl/ I can’t deny how much I love you, I done gave up everything I had to,” Usher laments. He goes on to question where he went wrong and how love can turn into something so hurtful.
There are several less serious songs on the album that are actually quite good as well. The powerful “There Goes My Baby” is a great display of Usher’s commanding voice, and “Lil’ Freak” is instantly catchy and stands out with a guest verse from female rapper Nicki Minaj.
However, one must sift through quite a few tracks of similar-sounding club anthems to find these gems. Raymond is 14 tracks long, and songs such as “OMG feat. Will.I.Am,” which should have been a great pairing of two talented artists, rely so heavily on auto-tune that it’s difficult to even tell the two apart.
Raymond v. Raymond, then, is a combination of the old, girl-crazy, party-boy Usher and the new, introspective Usher, and this combination has influenced such a wide variety of music on this album that it is difficult to give it a definite “good” or “bad” review.
With Raymond, Usher stays consistent with his past several albums. There will no doubt be several hits on the radio, and Usher fans will ultimately not be disappointed.
3 stars out of 5.
