Notes & Personnel Info |  | Coming on the heels of his number four Billboard Hot 100 single, "Birthday Sex," rising R&B star Jeremih releases his eponymous full-length album. A well-crafted set of modern urban soul, the set is produced by Mick Schultz and, surprising for an emerging artist in the '00s, does not feature any guest spots, allowing Jeremih's singing and songwriting prowess to take center stage. | | There's more to Jeremih's debut album than "Birthday Sex," a bedroom ballad that became a major summertime crossover hit a la J. Holiday's "Bed." Outside of the startlingly direct delivery of its title and the stuttering effect that comes into play whenever Jeremih sings lines like "I know you want to cry-y-y out" and "Girl you know I-I-I"--a twist on the-Dream's oft-deployed stammer--"Birthday Sex" is a basic but ingratiating slow jam built over Mick Schultz's gently rocking lullaby beat, rather "Bed"-like. Schultz, who met the singer in college, produces the whole album. Despite being a mere upstart who takes many cues from the hottest pop-savvy R&B producers running, including Tricky Stewart, Carlos McKinney, Danja, and Timbaland, he supplies his partner with a set of backdrops that covers all the bases, from low-slung Southern trunk rattlers to glossy Euro-flavored pop. Jeremih's charmingly sly voice, somewhere between One Twelve's Slim and a young Raphael Saadiq, is hard to not like, especially when he tempers his cockiness with a little sensitivity--best heard in "Break Up to Make Up," the song that also bears the album's sharpest hooks. |
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