No Boys Allowed

Keri Hilson keeps track of time and fashion

A young performer, line no other, should go to the studio as often as possible to record new albums regularly. This is when you are blessed with thousands of admirers and followers, when old and new hits of yours ring in everybody’s ear, you have the privilege to slow down a little bit. The R&B singer Keri Hilson knows it for sure. This is why she did not take time to relax after the promising debut released in 2009 under the title In A Perfect World. She was quick to drop another CD. The new work by Hilson bears quite a discrimination-colored name No Boys Allowed, which has its explanation. After all, masculine performers are noticed to have delivered a whole lot of songs where they speak too roughly regarding women. R&B, actually, is that domain of music where artists look particularly interested in making provocative albums following the ‘I am the best, I don’t need anyone’ motto. So, don’t be too hard on Keri Hilson: she’s just trying to stay close and loyal to fashion.

Hilson looks for her style on No Boys Allowed

There are some other and more important questions regarding Keri Hilson. One of them sounds like: is she able to bring to the table anything else except immodest videos and bold lyrics? Her promo video for The Way You Love Me, one of the new album’s tracks, produces an impression that she is more willing and ready to demonstrate her nice-looking appearance rather than her vocal abilities. On the other hand, when a fresher lacks performing skills, they can be ‘enhanced’ or covered by guests (in this case, Rick Ross, Kanye West, Nelly and others) as well as by almighty producers, including Timbaland. Looks like for the presence of these boys is allowed. In the meantime, the all of these people are not yet determined what music Keri Hilson should do. Her second album is not at all cohesive as its tracks do not form any unity, which, however, is not a rare thing for those who only start. The singer tries to stick to the R&B patterns she applied on her debut record, which works quite good with her. After the just good Buyou you have the excellent Pretty Girl Rock coming. The whole album could have been made on the model of these two, but Hilson tries something different here and there. Or is it the producers who made he do so?

Only problem is the artist’s inexperience

The abovementioned The Way You Love Me will be remembered by many thank to the bold video, but there will be enough of those who will pay attention to the way Keri sings here, aggressively and even harshly. You are not going to hear it anywhere else on the album, because this experiment seems to have failed. Instead, you will hear a reggae-molded ballad called Bahm Bahm (Do It Once Again) with a colorful accent. There are also episodes with raised tempo, sounding like the nineties’ disco, simplified vocals, sounding like plain pop stuff, and more weight on the vocals, sounding like an effort to imitate some soul. But what went most successful was a group of R&B numbers without or with only few borrowings from other trends, like the set neighbors One Night Stand, and Lose Control. It could be that these songs sound so attractive thank to the guest vocalists, but we have to admit that Keri Hilson did her best to be on par with these guys. While most of the lyrics are quite questionable, there are two songs where the words are better than the music. We are talking about Toy Soldier, and Breaking Point here. So we can conclude that had Keri Hilson put a more distinct objective, like making an album of mid-tempo R&B material, which sounds most favorable here, the singer could have made an even better record. So far, we can justify her missteps by her youth, because the talent she does possess.