All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.

— Ellen Glasgow

R&B is a very, VERY tricky genre in black music.  The younger singers tend to swim comfortably in the twin lakes of love and sex, where older singers tend to wade in the waters of love and relationships.  All three territories tend to get boring after a while, as almost all subject matter does if treaded too often, but that’s where the singer has to come in and address his or her own musical mortality.  The younger fans will appreciate the singer so long as they continually entertain them, and this can be through good music, tributes to Michael Jackson, washboard abs or a sexy persona.  The older fans will appreciate the singer so long as they can remain consistent AND break new ground, even if that ground is only new for the singer themselves.  It’s the reason a contemporary R&B artist (read: young buck) can release the same album every few years and the only noticeable difference is a standout single and a cover where he’s shirtless (examples include… know what?  Take your pick). 

Older singers aren’t allowed to do that though.  An R&B singer whose fan base is a bit older has to rely on less visual appeal and more sonic sound (as all musicians should, now that I think about it).  They walk the line between being too wild for those who don’t like change and too conservative for the crowd that calls for a different beat. 

For your clarification, “older” is a state of mind.  It doesn’t mean that the singer is “old” but they appeal to a grander crowd.  Let’s face it: Trey Songz will no doubt appeal to the 35 and under crowd any day of the week, but let a 45 year old wom… let a 55 year old woma… okay, that’s a bad example.  Let me try again.

Let’s face it: Chris Brown will no doubt appeal to the 35 and under crowd any day of the week, but… no, that won’t bear fruit either.  The point I’m trying to make, as poorly as it may seem, is that “older” singers keep their shirts on.  Have you seen John Legend without a shirt on?  Not in the realm of music.  And the same can be said for Kem.

Kem is something of a golden boy in adult contemporary R&B.  He appeals to an older crowd, more or less bypassing the 35 and under group, and this is the crowd that goes out and actually buys CDs.  He’s signed to Motown, he writes and plays his own music, and his hustle was on par with that of a young Christopher Bridges when he self-released his debut album, the aptly titled Kemistry.  His come up story is pretty Hollywood standard: he finished high school and sank into some bad vices, but then he found spirituality and the rest is history.

His voice carries the emotion and technique of an erstwhile Al Jarreau, and if there is one thing about his music, its how soothing it is.  Kemistry, Album II and Intimacy: Album III were all smooth and soothing, and kept him in a cozy little niche that never really tapped into the trap of incorporating hip-hop.  Does Promise to Love, his fourth album (sadly lacking the subtitle Album IV) maintain this smoothness?  Curiously, yes.  It’s actually rather frightening just how comfortable Kem has gotten with his music: earlier on there was the slightest shiver of self-doubt in his voice, masked behind the ambition to make it big.  It got smaller and smaller with each release, much like it did with Anthony Hamilton, and now he’s as confident as the guest stars on the album.  The laid back, jazz lounge style that he can damn near trademark at this point is ripe and easily digested.

Kem gave us an opening single with “It’s You” and it wasn’t anything special.  It wasn’t bad, nor was it excellent: it was a continuation of his style, and that was enough.  It was classic enough to put old fans at ease, and fresh enough to make a few new fans.  Opening singles are rarely a solid indicator of the finished product, so you could be forgiven if you heard intro track “Saving My Love for You” and thinking it was the opening track to Intimacy: Album III.  The assertion that Kem’s music is soothing is a double-edged sword, providing plenty of familiarity but also running the risk of being too familiar, and thus sounding too much like previous songs.  The same can be said for the album’s namesake.  But following that, things get a little interesting.

Kem has always incorporated the jazz lounge sound, and now he’s brought hip-hop into it, and where many fail to hold their own (i.e. get overtaken by the usually snare-heavy style), Kem seems to ride the wave unusually well.  On “Downtown” he displays his vocal talents over a very “SoHo” backdrop, with assistance from the safest hip-hop feature alive: Snoop Dogg (it IS Dogg when he’s rapping right?  Lion when he’s doing reggae?).  Thus we enter our subject’s foray into a more eccentric style, and were this track the sole example it would have been a nice diversion.  But two tracks later he seems to revisit the “Downtown” with “Do What You Gotta Do”, a song that sounds different but is plagued by sounding similar all the same.  This isn’t like the “MC Hammer”/”BMF” quagmire on Rick Ross’ Teflon Don.  This is when a vibe is too comfortable, and thus we don’t have two distinct tracks so much as a suite that could have been better called “Downtown, Parts 1 and 2”.

The “Downtown” vibe continues throughout, reaching a particular low point with “My Favorite Things”.  While the song itself is bouncy enough to be a solid summer track, the presence of Ron Isley is oddly discomforting.  Where someone like Snoop (insert animal here) always seems appropriate on a track, Ron Isley constantly shows his age with forced references to social media and continued references to women he has no business being with.  Seriously, compare Isley Brothers hits that birthed people in my generation to Isley Brothers featuring Ron Isley hits of today recently.  These were love-making songs crooned by a man with a smooth, distinctive voice; women WANTED Ron Isley at the time.  Listening to (more) recent songs from the man are about how he’s with a young, twentysomething woman he has no business with.  And she normally leaves the man for R. Kelly.  These are poor life choices all around.

The upsides are always Kem’s voice and Kem’s personal lyrics.  Sometimes they can come across as a bit outlandish, but they always sound like they come from the heart, whether he’s singing about a night on the town or his spirituality.  It makes “Pray for Me” a particularly impressive track, putting him behind a simple backdrop as he confronts his faith directly and enters a bit of a mantra state, repeating “pray for me” as the acoustic guitar goes through a constant loop.  Adult contemporary can be a rather tame genre, but this song stands out as a soul-bearing display, even more so than album closers from the likes of Kemistry or Album II.

Also interesting is the inclusion of L’Renee.  While she is far from a newcomer, Kem is certainly adding some exposure to her appeal, and she’s a talented singer.  I like her voice, and her music is on Bandcamp, so give it a listen, and I’ll likely cover her in the near future. 

When an artist releases a new project, the first question I usually ask is “How have they grown?”  Evolution is a vital part of the growth of an artist, in all facets, and with this album I don’t get a lot of it.  On one hand, Kem has grown over three albums already, and frankly he doesn’t need to reach a new plateau right now: he experimented a bit but otherwise he hasn’t really switched up his style enough to say he’s in a new place.  It’s a bit like John Legend and his second album Once Again.  Even he admitted that he wasn’t pushing the boundaries or breaking the mold very much, but that didn’t stop the album from being highly enjoyable.  Kem’s Promise to Love is indeed a pleasure to listen to, if not as great a pleasure as Kemistry.  It isn’t a showing of growth or evolution per se, but it didn’t really need to be.  It’s a fine album, and that’s good with me.

(After completion edit: turns out Album IV IS the subtitle for the album.  Guess it’s my fault for having a deluxe edition where it isn’t clearly visible on the cover. )