If you didn't know by now, producer Ryan Leslie's serious about a singing career. Unlike many of the other producers who have crossed over to become performers (Diddy, Sean Garrett and others come to mind), R-Les actually has the chops to make people forget that he started out helping create hits for others. His sophomore album, Transition, which was released in the U.S. on Nov. 3, 2009, is his second album this year; his self-titled debut came out back in February. And the two albums have the same strengths and weaknesses: the music production is hot of course, but Ryan suffers from a lack of star power and charisma.
Charismatically Challenged
According to R-Les himself, Transition revolves around a real-life summer courtship and romance. But unfortunately, the album has a definite lack of heat. Ryan is doing a slow, steady job of establishing himself as a credible vocalist, but he's not quite there yet. He has everything else going for him: smart lyrics, good themes, great production and an original voice. But although his voice can be easily identified from all the other singers out there, he hasn't established himself as a particularly compelling vocalist. In other words, he suffers from a definite lack of charisma. His voice isn't quite monotone, but it's definitely low-key and not highly thrilling to listen to. He definitely gets props for not going the Auto-Tune route and not adding on a lot of other studio embelishments to his voice, but at the same time, he needs to work on improving his vocal skills.
Other than this flaw, Transition is a solid, pleasant album to listen to. Among the best tracks are the uptempo dance song "You're Not My Girl," the you-can-trust-me-baby song "All My Love" and the pop-ish, synthesizer-driven "Something That I Like," which benefits from an energizing verse from rapper Pusha T of hip-hop duo the Clipse. All the songs are about love, sex and relationships, and judging by the lyrics, R-Les certainly enjoys crooning about romance. But thing is, it's not really apparent in his voice. Not matter what the topic, he sounds fairly detached from the words coming out of his mouth, and the result is an album that ultimately comes up short in the memorable song department.
