In a month of hyped up album battles between Kanye West and 50 Cent, will.i.am gives us his first solo release and one of the best album-length productions all year. Songs About Girls has the former rapper and producer behind the Black Eyed Peas flipping through his little black book, with songs dedicated to the girls he's had, the girls he's lost, the one's he wants back, as well as the Hip Hop staple of strippers trying to make a living. The girl-centered album is proof that Will must have left all the good beats for himself because Songs About Girls boasts club bangers and sing-along car ride tracks that are way less embarrassing and obnoxious than the background party music of Black Eyed Peas' Monkey Business that saturated the radio for the last few years.
Fortunately, the only thing reminiscent of "My Humps" is the first single, "I Got It From My Mama," which has Will clumsily rapping and repeatedly asking "Baby, where'd you get your body from?"
Aside from a Snoop Dogg guest appearance on the track, "The Donque Song," the rest of the album proves to be a pretty solid display of modern R&B production and innovative techniques.
The only blatantly noticeable sample is taken from the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" on Will's song "Fantastic," but it's done fairly well.
For the man who brought us "humps," this is commercial redemption. He already produced one of the best hooks of last year, sampling Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" for Nas's title track off Hip Hop Is Dead, and Songs About Girls again proves Will's credibility as a producer.
If a will.i.am track is going to loop on every radio station, we should be glad its one of these Fergie-less tracks.
will.i.am
Songs About Girls
1. Over
2. Heartbreaker
3. I Got It From My Mama
4. She's A Star
5. Get Your Money
6. The Donque Song (Featuring Snoop Dogg)
7. Impatient
8. One More Chance
9. Invisible
10. Fantastic
11. Fly Girl
12. Dynamite Interlude
13. Ain't It Pretty
14. Make It Funky
15. S.O.S (Mother Nature)
go crazy