Street Love

Lloyd assaults charts again

For the first time Lloyd showed himself up on a starry horizon in 2004 and it must be admitted that he announced his appearance with quite a stir. His debut album Southside sold more than 300,000 copies. And though the album became highly demanded generally due to one single recorded with Ashanti, one can say with certainty that his debut was a successful one. Not every 18-year-old singer can achieve such a result. But despite his bright takeoff Lloyd seemed more like a temporary phenomenon rather than a new musical discovery and the fact that there was no news about his artistic plans up to December of 2006 only strengthen this attitude. But nothing of the sort, Lloyd ‘s name assaults chart’s positions again. His new album Street Love saw the light of the day on March, 13 and it’s popularity keeps on growing. In one word, Lloyd establishes a fact that he is here to stay and isn’t going to leave. He declined a street thug image of his first album for benefit of romantic, sweet loving look and evidently tries to take a niche of a new teenagers’ sex symbol. Street Love is soaked with love lyrics, passionate confessions and sighs.

Street Love has more hits than Lloyd’s debut record

Lloyd is a definitely talented vocalist. Despite his modest experience Lloyd sounds confident and convincing. Likeness of his timbre with Michael Jackson’s voice makes you set up an association between them unintentionally. And it needs to be said that Lloyd looks quite worthy on a pop King’s background, in fact, a comparison itself with such a loud name tells a lot. From a technical point of view the album sounds almost perfect, it is really hard to find faults in producing or performance. Street Love gains an advantage over Lloyd’s debut in a bigger quantity of highlights first of all. Following the genre’s traditions Lloyd recorded the album’s main single You together with such a well-known person as Lil Wayne. This is a one hundred percent club hit, a sultry and unhurried R&B unit with an abundance of vocal sloppy tenderness, definitely one of the best songs. Get It Shawnty – the album’s masterpiece number two. A great dance song where Lloyd tries his rapping strength in a verse, the song was produced by Usher’s younger brother J Lack. Lloyd continues his rap voyage on Hazel – a pretty dark composition with heavy, slow beat.

Street Love – a foundation for a future career

The album suffers an overabundance of ballads. Unfortunately it can’t be referred to advantages. The problem is that the material is quite unvaried. Though this part of the album can boast with its highlights too. Valentine for instance. This is a really attractive acoustic song where Lloyd sings falsetto a lot. Or a title track Streetlove. Overall the album may be considered a successful sophomore attempt. Well, there are some problems with lack of original ideas of course – too many standards and straightforward simplicity, but on the other hand Street Love is a much more stronger record than Lloyd’s debut album. Street Love became a solid foundation for a long time and successful career. Lloyd can sing, the only things he needs is to work on are his musical tastes and his personal performing manner. He made one step in this direction already – gangsta image change has done him good, this allowed him to show what he can do in a full measure. The album is intended for a young audience both lyrically and musically but it is quite capable to interest critically minded listeners too.