jeff_wilder78's Full Review: Comin' from Where I'm From by Anthony Hamilton
"I like Beyonce. But R&B for the most part is all but dead today."
Those are the (paraphrased) words of my friend Jasmine from a conversation we had a while ago. I found myself nodding in agreement. Because while current R&B is not exactly dead, it's not anywhere near where it could (should) be. Too much of it is less R&B than it is pop music for the "urban" crowd in much the same way too much modern "country" is less country and more bubblegum for the redneck crowd.
The sad fact is that one of the main selling points of too much current R&B is that it has no soul at all. There are exceptions of course (Mary J Blige, D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, John Legend and certain songs by Ms. Beyonce). And one of those exceptions is a 39-year old singer-songwriter from North Carolina named Anthony Hamilton.
After knocking around the R&B circuit for awhile (including singing backup for the aforementioned D'Angelo) Hamilton released his second album Comin' From Where I'm From in 2003. This album was his breakthrough of sorts. It didn't sell as many copies as the sample heavy mechanical bubblegum of Ashanti and Usher. But anyone who heard it knew that THIS was the real deal.
I first became aware of Mr. Hamilton when I read Speeddemon's marvelous review of CFWIF. He made it sound good and from what I'd heard of it, it sounded like a superb album. But for some odd reason I never got around to picking it up for almost 9 years. Until early this year when I found myself going through a break-up of sorts. It seemed like Hamilton's lyrics from this album could work as a tonic. So I ran over to Best Buy and grabbed a copy.
Upon first putting the CD in my stereo, I was surprised to hear hip-hop beats on the first track "Mama Knew Love". "Please" I thought. "Don't let this be another clone R&B album".
I needn't have worried. The minute I heard the lyrics of "Mama Knew Love" I could tell that Mike had been right about Mr. Hamilton and this album.
So yes, the album did work as a comfort of sorts in those sad days. More importantly, it's just as emotionally affecting now, even after I've moved on from that moment of lost love=massive pain.
Yes, there are some hip-hop beats on CFWIF. But they add to the album, they don't detract from it. There's also diversity in the music. Hip-hop is only one part of it. There's classic soul ballad sounds on a few of the tracks and a rock backing of sorts on "Black Chyna".
Then there are the lyrics. Hamilton's songwriting is influenced not so-much by the "I wanna sex you up" school of current R(umps)&B(ooties). But the classic soul likes of Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Bill Withers and 70s Stevie Wonder. But the secret to what makes this album so good is that he takes those classic influences and synthesizes them into a current setting. CFWIF is the sound of Hamilton celebrating soul's rich past while proving it has a future beyond the likes of Keri Hilson.
Now let's go back to that first song on the album "Mama Knew Love". "Mama knew love like the back roads/Used to fell asleep daily in her work clothes". This is a song that uses a Jay-Z sample, which was in itself sampled from an Al Green song, yet lyrically evokes that classic Stevie Wonder album Innervisions. The way Hamilton sings makes you feel the love he feels for his mother. If we couldn't understand the lyrics from listening to him sing, we STILL would get the message.
The Innervisions influence is also apparent on the title track. Over a slower, smoother backing, Hamilton sings of a young man who "Started when I was 9 years old/Woke up and daddy was gone/Started hustling and they couldn't tell me nothing". The song continues to its bleak yet optimistic conclusion and leaves you feeling saddened yet hopeful.
Remember that Kenny Rogers so-called classic "Lucille"? That's one song that's almost impossible to take seriously nowadays (I admit to on one occasion singing that one with some buddies and following up the opening chorus line with shouts of "you sl**, you b***, you w****!"). But here Hamilton re-makes it and makes it soulful. Actually, he doesn't re-make it as much as re-write it entirely apart from the "You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille" lyric. He takes that one line and builds a whole new song around it. This time instead of Lucille leaving an impotent farmer "with four hungry children and a crop in the field", we hear Hamilton tell of a woman who left him to get drunk and get back together with her physically abusive ex over an acoustic backing. The old "Lucille" was corny, this one gets under your skin and stays there long after the lines of "I never would've hit you baby oh no".
"I'm a mess" is one of the best breakup songs I've heard in the past few years. With a choir in the background, Hamilton sings lyrics that would evaporate quickly coming from the likes of Usher. But from him they hit like a punch to the gut both because of the music and the way he sings them: "You could have called/You could have wrote/You could have tried/I'd rather you slit me cross the throat so I can die".
The hip-hop elements are also felt on "Cornbread Fish And Collared Greens". Lyrically this one shows off Hamilton's sense of humor with "Cornbread fish and collared greens/If you want it (I'm a pimp girl)...If you want it (I put the juice in Jheri curl)" I suspect Hamilton intended this song as a satire of the numerous pimp R(ump)&B(ootie) songs that have inundated the airwaves over the past ten years. A great song to dance to this one is.
"Black Chyna" has a great rock backing that complements the drug escapism lyrics. Drug escapism also pops up in the smoother "Floating". There's also the superb home from the road, I'll always be there ballad "Charlene". But overall, there's not one bad song on this disc. No annoying interludes either.
As I said previously, Comin' From Where I'm From is a current R&B album that proves R&B is not quite totally dead. By mixing classic 70s soul with a 2000s idiom, Anthony Hamilton has created an album that is not only one of the best R&B albums of this decade; it's one of the best albums of the decade period. By mixing great beats with personal lyrics, Comin' From Where I'm Coming From is the best soul singer-songwriter album since Mary J Blige's "My Life". Definitely buy Comin' From Where I'm From if you don't already own it and none of the previous reviews on here have convinced you otherwise. It's one of the albums that are helping to bring real soul back to R&B.
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