tigger500's Full Review: Mars/Venus [PA] by Koffee Brown
THIS IS REALLY LONG...ENJOY :)
Writing this review proved to be much more difficult than any other music review I’ve yet written. I usually do a lot of research on the artists and read reviews to get an idea of the perceptions foisted on the artist and try to determine, as best I can, how much that affects the artist and the music itself. It is especially hard when there aren’t many reviews and when the album you are reviewing is in a genre chronically misrepresented and misunderstood.
And so we have Koffee Brown’s Mars/Venus, a stunning conceptual album, laid out with such obvious care and consideration, that its missteps become nearly meaningless amidst the valiant attempt to chronicle one relationship from meeting to its supposed ending. And Mars/Venus is notable because it has the benefit lacking in other albums of its type (Maxwell’s flawless Urban Hang Suite comes to mind) namely, that both the female and male viewpoints are put forth in the smooth tones of Falonte Moore and the syrupy restraint of Vee.
Now conceptual albums are almost chronically ignored in black music. Everyone and their mother loved Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill but almost no review discussed at all, let alone in depth, how that album chronicled the dissolution of a relationship and a woman’s growing disgust with the man she was with. Few if anyone understood that much of ‘Pac’s work was conceptual. And even though Janet Jackson’s works are all conceptual, rarely is the breadth of any given Janet album critically interrogated.
And so why is it any surprise that not only was this album not reviewed in any meaningful or thoughtful way, but that it was overlooked by the vast majority of the public? Well, there isn't any. But the usual suspects that reviewers use to slight an album are in abundance. There is quite a lot of swearing, in fact one song, I Got Love (Scars) is a thoughtful, if overly narrow and paternalistic, dissection of the word “b*tch”. And the skits, although silly and slightly moronic, are strategically placed to enhance the flow of the album.
But that hardly matters. Koffee Brown have constructed a solid, if somewhat disappointing, piece of art.
Because Mars/Venus charts a relationship the song order is extremely important to following the emotional track of the album. And because of song order, certain songs gain a deeper meaning because of where they are placed. Quickie is, on the surface, a callow and (surprisingly) clever exultation of sex, (sample lyric…I wanna dive in your tight thighs/Got the right size/Wanna do thangs till your frame hit the light), but coming after the brilliant All Those Fancy Things, it serves as a break in the flow of the relationship drama wherein Falonte and Vee simply enjoy each other.
The first song, Weekend Thing opens the album well, with a simple beat where the couple goes out and just have a good time. It transitions well into first single, the infectious (in the best sense of the word) After Party where Falonte and Vee “meet and kick it”. The album then transitions into some of the introductory problems and issues of a new relationship, from the issues of doubt and accountability in Didn’t Mean To Turn You On, the blame and mistrust of Chick On The Side and Fingerpointing, to the outright anger displayed in a strangely detached and corny way in the album's weakest song, Blackout. In theory, a rap cameo would seem like a good idea, but the song is far too modulated…both Falonte and Vee seem too nice. The lyrics (Think I’m about to blackout, blackout/Grabbin out, wildin out/Flippin on me/I’m flippin on you) as an independent entity escalate the emotion well, but the arrangement and the melody is just too pretty. It comes across hollow.
All I Need is an decently uplifting song (although the rhyme, by Du-Ganz is average at best) that becomes fuller placed after Blackout, seeming more redemptive and perhaps a little desperate with lyrics like Without your love where would I be?/Ain’t no other lover in the world for me/So if we gotta go out like that/Then let it be/You’re all I need to make it. Qualified, a little later in the album, is similar in theme to All I Need but is infinitely better, if a bit too materialistic.
Much of the problem with the uptempos lies in the prettiness displayed in these songs. They don't really escalate the agony in a way that is as emotionally gratifying like in many of the other songs. While everything on the album is well-produced and listenable, the middle chunk of the album is less interesting as the more sophisticated explorations of the first few songs and, especially, the final half of the album. Interestingly, Blackout and All I Need, while not great songs by any means, serve as the apex of the relationship and everything following it is about the fallout, the problems surrounding a relationship that is dying.
Luckily, everything after these songs is near brilliant in the sheer emotion and lyrical and musical complexity depicting the end of a relationship.
All Those Fancy Things brings all the materialism interspersed throughout the album into one song and explores with shocking simplicity and one killer couplet Superstar, now she smashed your car/Hurting you is much too easy, how aggressive capitalist greed in the black community destroys love. How f*cking ill is that couplet?!! I simply love it. Things is a solo spot for Vee, whose smooth subtle emotional delivery is so perfect you feel the pain of loosing a man to a woman who might superficially be more than you can give. You never get a sense of anger, more a strong current of real defeat, which lends the song a power and weight unrivaled on the album, and perhaps in any song of its type in contemporary R&B. It is that good, carried almost totally by Vee’s performance.
Quickie is next and then after the somewhat inane View parody, Koffee Brown tackles the taboo subject of the word, “b*tch” in I Got Love (Scars). It’s a gorgeous melody and Falonte’s melancholic delivery is great, but the lyrics don’t go far enough. I don’t really think summing up a man’s use of the word so casually with I’m just wiping scars and I know the only reason that you’re hearing me/Cause your man won’t stop playing my CD defeats the purpose of singing the song, but it does undermine Falonte's genuine delivery a lot. Vee’s verses are much more interesting. She has a zinger in another brilliant couplet You talk about us like we’re worth…/Not the ni**a, we’re the ones coppin’ records. It shuts down every femiphobic sentiment underlying Falonte’s verses and completely saves the song.
But Falonte comes back with his solo joint, the sublimely melodic Hater’s Disease, by far the most inventive and useful articulation of that accursed and overutilized word, “hater” in contemporary music. It serves as the companion, emotionally and creatively, to Vee’s All Those Fancy Things. It is a man’s plea to find the love. That’s it. It’s just old-fashioned, Teddy Pendergrass-like begging. And Falonte might never sound this good again. The song’s brilliant.
An interesting side note is the gender flip flop of these two songs. Calling a someone superficial, materialistic and shallow is more commonplace coming from a man directed at a woman, esp. in the hip-hop generation. But Vee gets that topic. And the sappy sentimentality in Falonte’s Hater’s Disease is usually associated with the “weaker” sex, but Falonte gets that task. It’s so obvious, so well executed, that it makes all the little problems in much of the rest of the album disappear. In these two songs is the core of what Koffee Brown seem to really be about on Mars/Venus; breakers of gender construction, skewers of materialism, and just plain old interested in the complexities of love.
But unfortunately, Mars/Venus does falter by only superficially delving into the real issues and placing blame in mutual materialism. The middle chunk is catchy and fun to listen to but nowhere near as good as what bookends the album. And they fall prey to their own materialism in songs like Blackout, Weekend Thing and especially the still-sublime, Qualified.
The finale of the album, caps off a fascinating, if spotty, journey with the hopeful Do You See. A gospel-inflected ode to the redemptive power of love and the power of holding out for it, it manages to avoid trite sentimentality and artifice with aplomb. Both Vee and Falonte sound reinvigorated and in pure harmony with this material. Interestingly, they (at least at the time of the album’s release) are actually a couple and it shows in the finer moments of the album, notably here. And the song is really fascinating because it doesn’t really say that love’s journey is over with a breakup or rather, that with a breakup endings can be a beginning. The lyric My life has changed romantically, catastrophe, it has to be/All because of you is the kicker. Equating love with the word “catastrophe” is a masterstroke. Succinct. Accurate.
And perfectly encapsulates the attempt at exploring love in a complex manner on the album. Doesn’t completely work but better than most, Koffee Brown, believe that black folks have the capacity to love deeply and fully and even on the weaker tracks, that shines through in a way almost completely indescribable.
Perhaps it’s because much of contemporary R&B is so depressing, callow, and pessimistic. But I think Mars/Venus, with all its flaws, is doing something that even the so-called neo-soul artists aren’t doing. Depicting love and its pitfalls without straying away from implicating themselves in what is wrong. In much of today’s R&B, the singer is an observer.
Not so with Koffee Brown. They chart a course through it. It doesn’t totally work. But damn if they didn’t give it a helluva try and sound good doin’ it.
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