Music Review // Cameron James "On Time!"

 

One of the most difficult things about listening to this new album, "On Time!", by Cameron James for me is how much of the past I hear in it and yet I don't think a lot of people remember a lot of these artists.  Cameron James combines those R&B feels with hip hop, but it's that emphasis on R&B.  I wonder do the kids today even talk about Bell Biv DeVoe or Jodeci, when these were all artists on cassettes I was getting back from Columbia House.  It's partly that perhaps I am out of touch with modern R&B, but also I just don't think modern R&B is the same as what was happening in the 1990's.

Through beats and singing, Cameron James brings you songs about love.  For modern artist comparisons, such as I'd hear on the radio I'd have to name artists such as The Weeknd, blackbear and Post Malone, even though I only really know Post Malone from that one song in that Spider-Man movie.  It's just that this music by Cameron James can feel catchy- there are hooks which get stuck in your head- but it feels closer to a hip hop release I'd hear on Hand'Solo Records than it does anything that's on the radio right now and that's because I think it also carries a great deal of depth.

Perhaps my favorite song on here, an early album contender because as it sits at the number three spot you'll hear it a lot, "Trippin", has the lyrics: "There's tears on your face / Let me wipe 'em away" .  This sums up a lot of what the album is about lyrically because it's that way of thinking, yeah, I'm the asshole and I'll break your heart, but I'm also really nice and I'll help you put the pieces back together.  The song "Picture Perfect" also has the lines: "I know all your favorite positions / Think you might be my new edition", which could be a nod to those artists who came before that I grew up with, in a if you know you know kind of way.

There are also features on here.  Teon Gibbs has a great verse on "Don't Fight Me".  "Mind Games" has those more acoustic, flamenco sounding guitars and within the music of that song I do think of Bad Bunny.  I just think that each of these songs has their own qualities, where they're like little albums inside one big album, and to put these altogether and in the order which they are as well, this just feels like an album in a world where everyone is just collecting music.  Past, present, future-- this feels like the best place to start with R&B right now.