accessAtlanta

R&B
Babyface
"Grown & Sexy." Arista. 12 tracks.
Grade: B-

Babyface's music was grown and sexy years before grown and sexy became a hip-hop catchphrase.

(ENLARGE)
Babyface – 'Grown & Sexy'
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That's what made the hits the singer-songwriter-producer created in the '90s for Whitney Houston ("Exhale — Shoop Shoop"), Boyz II Men ("End of the Road"), Madonna ("Take a Bow"), Toni Braxton ("Let It Flow"), Bobby Brown ("Roni") and countless others so memorable.

But now that the times have caught up with Babyface, he seems to be spending a little too much time looking over his shoulder instead of maintaining his lead.

"Tonight It's Goin' Down"? "Mad Sexy Cool"? "Drama, Luv & 'Lationships"?

The titles on Babyface's first original album in four years sound like they belong on a CD by a younger, less-experienced crooner like Omarion.

And when he rattles off lines like "I got cash . . . I got a crib" on the title track and "I don't know nobody half as fresh as you . . . Baby, you got so much flavor" on "Mad," he sounds a little like a slightly technically manipulated Omarion. Then he veers a little too close to raunchy R. Kelly on "Tonight" and "Can't Stop Now."

Midway through, though, the Babyface of old surfaces on the awfully titled "Drama," sounding at times like the sweet-voiced Curtis Mayfield. And on "The Loneliness," "She" and "God Must Love U," one of classic contemporary R&B's few remaining balladeers confidently re-establishes his own lane.

— Sonia Murray