Music to Chatter About: Ryan Leslie - Ryan Leslie The OFFICIAL REVIEW

Ryan Leslie (Self-Titled)
Release Date: Feb 10, 2009
Label: Casablanca Music, LLC/Universal Motown

You get the sense that there is a genius of sorts about Singer/Songwriter/Producer Ryan Leslie. His story is as follows: At the age of 15, he scores a 1600 on his SATs, which landed him at Harvard while everyone else his age were still trying to score prom dates. After graduating, he pursues music full-time, selling beats as a local producer in Boston. After a chance meeting with producer Young Lord, he lands an internship with him as a producer, leading to his first major label credit, "Keep Giving Your Love to Me," a song for Beyonce from the Bad Boys II soundtrack. This lead to subsequent work with Britney Spears, New Edition, Loon, Cheri Dennis, Donell Jones, and his own flagship artist Cassie. He's kept fans abreast of his developments with his self-titled debut via his YouTube page and his website. To say that the release of this album has been a long time coming is an understatement.

The album is a showcase of his songwriting and production skills, which aren't at all lacking; most of the instruments you hear here are played by Leslie himself. The album kicks off strong with "Diamond Girl," which was accompanied by a short film of the same name months ago. "Addiction (feat. Cassie and Fabolous)," another single released last year, immediately follows. Both are strong numbers to kick off the album with and get the listener engaged.

However, Leslie starts to shine after the stuff you've heard before has played. "You're Fly" is easy on the ears, coupling sleek live instrumentation and synthesizers, which proves to be a constant throughout the LP. He kicks things into high gear with "Quicksand," which as a pseudo-rock jam. Later in the album, he showcases superior production and musicianship and is at his best when he lets the songs ride out jam-session style, as evidenced on "Irina," and "Wanna Be Good."


As great as the collection of songs are, there are missteps. The soft-charm of "Valentine" comes off as a little cheesy within such a potent collection, but that's not to say it's a bad song, necessarily. It just doesn't belong on this album. At first listen, "Gibberish" comes off as just that. Smart move putting that one at the end. His vocals aren't the strongest, but at least he holds his own and doesn't rely on computer-assisted pitch correction (see my Auto-Tune post to understand my gripe). Additionally, the rapping he insisted on keeping on "You're Fly" and "Diamond Girl" should be left out of the follow up. The strength of the songwriting compensates for most of the shortcomings. Let's hope that he delves a little deeper next go round. Keeping it simple this time around was smart, but now he's ready to go all in. Either way, this is a great debut offering that I am sure will stand out among the droves of R&B releases to come out this year.

Chatterbox Rating: 4 out of 5.