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I've been a Johnta Austin fan on the low for awhile. He finally is dropping new music and I'm so excited about it! His new album, "Love, Sex, and Religion" will be out soon :)
This album isn't for everyone. And I don't say that negatively, I say that literally. If Souljah Boy Tell'em is your all-time favorite artist, nine times out of ten, this album is not for you. (And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that…I'm down to "turn my swag on" and "crank dat souljah boy" with the best of them lol) But there's a difference between making good songs and making good music. The line has been drawn for decades…and ladies and gentleman, Erykah Badu makes music. Real music.
The first thing that I liked about this album was the title. Obviously, the "New Amerykah Part Two" portion of it was expected based on her last album, "New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)." But the "Return of the Ankh" part of the title is interesting to me. An Ankh is an Egyptian hieroglyphic character that means "eternal life." So…basically, she's saying that this album is the return of something that's timeless, which means that it'll always be around, and more importantly, that it was always here. That's deep. I love it.
The title is only successful because it's true. The content of her music is universal and timeless. You can never really go wrong with songs about love and relationships because somebody, somewhere, at some time experienced the exact same thing. So, the empathy factor is there.
And the fact that the title of her album alludes to the notion that this music was already here is genius. You can clearly hear that these songs are influenced by songs of the past. Some parts of "Turn Me Away (Get Munny)" are identical to the 1980 hit "Can't Turn Me Away" by Sylvia Striplin, which is the same song that Junior Mafia sampled for "Get Money." Actually, only 3 out of the 11 tracks do not contain samples from old songs. So, the presence of past greatness is felt throughout the album. One of the few songs that doesn't contain a sample is the first single, "Window Seat." This was a GREAT choice for a first single. It's such a classic "Erykah Badu song" and the lyrics are just as phenomenal as her vocals and the catchy melody. I haven't met anyone who doesn't like this song. She caught a lot of flack (and a disorderly conduct charge) for the video, but honestly, it only brought more publicity to the amazing song.
The second single hasn't been revealed yet but "Jump Up In The Air And Stay There" was released before "Window Seat" as an internet promotional single back in January. This song has Parliament-Funkadelic written all over it...and the addition of Bilal and Lil' Wayne only make the song better. The beat is catchy....inspires a nice little head-nod. The video is very kaleidoscopic, but I like it.
The album starts off with "20 Feet Tall," which has repreitive lyrics but I think she did that to reinforce the message that if you stand up to what you believe in and what you know is right, you can see past love. The music is real chill but the message is deep. Good song.
"Agitation"...I don't know about that one yet. Sometimes I like it and sometimes it sounds like a theme song for a TV show. It's a short track, so maybe it was intended to be more of an interlude that an actual song...I don't know.
I basically like every song until I get to "Incense." Musically, it's ok but the song altogether doesn't really do much for me. It takes too long for her to start saying anything and the beginning of the song makes me want to go to sleep. It isn't terrible, but it is one of my least favorite on the album.
For many people, that first sentence can tell them all they need to know. Either they will continue listening, or the song will end...right there...at the first line. "Out My Mind, Just in Time" starts with Erykah saying, "I'm a recovering undercover over lover." It's a great first line. That's the love that people don't sing about too often...but many people experience it. The rest of the song follows that mood of the person who has realized that they secretly gave too much of themselves to someone who didn't deserve or appreciate it. The whole concept of over loving someone is intriguing to me, and if I keep talking about this song, this review will turn into an essay that's completely off-topic lol. I'm not quite sure how much I love the song, but the message is amazing.
Overall, I like the album. Although I wish there were a few more tracks, I don't feel like these songs were easily thrown together in a short amount of time. I appreciate the content and messages that are presented throughout the album, and as a self-proclaimed "music head" I appreciate the samples of throwback music. On the other hand, it's not the type of album that you would want to hear all the time. A lot of these songs might not get a lot of radio play...and most of them probably won't get the media exposure that they deserve.
The fact that this album isn't for everybody is the best and worst thing about it. And for what it's worth, "New Amerykah Part Two" is better than "New Amerykah Part One."
