|
 |
Keyshia Cole
A Different Me
Campus Correspondent review by Paul Lewis,
Quinnipac University
After another season of holding down a spot on BET’s primetime lineup with her reality show “Keyshia Cole’s The Way It Is,” the Grammy-nominated R&B songstress Keyshia Cole has decided to put out her third album titled A Different Me (Geffen). The first single off the album “Playa Cardz Right” (featuring Tupac), is surprising lively, though the best collaboration comes courtesy of Amina on the song “No Other.” These collaborations enhance the already great music and don’t take away from Cole’s vocal ability.
In an interview with Billboard’s Gail Mitchell, Cole said that this album was a different side of her, a young woman still finding herself. Consider the singer found since the entire CD is a feminine powerhouse. In the track “Thought You Should Know,” Cole calls out a club player and tells him that she’s not going to let him just charm her into bed. She has turned from someone who would sing the formulaic songs about loss in previous efforts to a strong willed woman who wants the best, won’t stop till she gets there and never settles.
The only dark spot to the album is the producing. Even though the beats are amazing, the song “Where This Love Can End Up” is the sole acoustic track and Cole nails it. Maybe for the next album, she should consider less emphasis on hooks and just let loose with the vocals. Nonetheless, this album is exactly what Keyshia Cole needed, a calling card to announce her arrival into the R&B pond as a big fish and as an artist worth looking at in the future.
|
