greater than one beautiful surprise: dwele & tamia, a double feature

its that time again where I give you hairykats some tracks for your ears in between tracks for your...tracks...hey, I was trying to be clever did it work? lol whatever.

I come to you on this monday evening with greater than one beautiful surprise. I love how that flows. that's the name of the albums released this week by Dwele titled Greater than One and Beautiful Surprise by Tamia.

Let me start by saying Dwele is my dude. I remember about 5 or 6 years ago hearing him perform his 2nd studio album Some Kinda at the House of Blues in Universal Hollywood. I remember standing there , I was with a group of friends, but  felt like I was there alone, head cocked to the side, staring at this brotha with the chocolately skin letting the words of his every song just flow off of his lips.

Wooooh. Dwele is best known for his use of horns in his songs. I absolutely love his music , his music is like that breeze on a hot day that ever so slighlty blows your curtain open for you to feel that cool air. Is that vivid enough for you? Dwele is like hot cocoa on a cold day, cold lemonade on a hot day, he's the bomb yaw. This album is no different. We need something refreshing in this day in age of music. This is real music. The thing I like most about Dwele's music is that he doesn't shy away from his true self. We get the full essence and presence of Detroit's in the house!

I have heard Dwele on many collaborations from DJ Quik to Kanye West (yes, Flashing Lights anyone?), but my utmost favorite is when he teams up with Raheem Devaughn! Together they are like Neo Soul super heroes. Dwele blesses us again on Greater than One with a collabo with Radio Raheem on track titled What You Gotta Do. 

Dwele always provides us with songs to move to, dance floor or bedroom. He takes us to the dance floor for us to two step and snap our fingers on tracks such as Must Be, Patrick Ronald, and Special and straight to the bedroom on Obey and Frankly My Dear. He definetly has more uptempo songs on this album than on previous albums, but I def don't mind!

Switching gears to Mrs. Tamia. Before I even knew the name of her album I thought "wow this is beautiful as I listened to it. and to my surprise the album is titled Beautiful Surprise. I must admit Tamia's music is definetly difficult for me to listen to because I lost a friend some 6 years ago and Still by Tamia was one of her favorite songs. There's actually a remastered version of Still on the Beautiful Surprise album.

Nonetheless, I've always loved Tamia's vocals. Her pitch is simply unmatched in this day in age. Her voice has a uniqueness to it. She has the appeal of a studio artist  based on tracks such as previously released song like  I Can't Get Enough of You and  Lose My Mind from her new album. (Officially Missing You is STILL my go to song to cry it out WOOOH)  Her voice is so crisp and clear but I never got that feeling that she couldn't sing live or that she needed special effects to back her up in live performances. Her voice is just, a beautiful surprise. 

There's definetly an underlying theme on this album and its that of the transformations of love. From odes to love to hurts from love you definetly get a full exposure of emotional range on this album.
I don't love it. But I do think its beautiful. For me music speaks to my mood or tells a story for me that I'm unable to tell myself. This album is a little too  grown for me, in a sense that I enjoy it because  the songs and lyrics are beautiful but I don't relate to most of the songs on the album and I don't find that mass consumers will either. It definetly speaks to me in appreciating beautiful music, but its not necessarily an album I'd play from start to finish on repeat.

That's just me though. You be the judge and check out both Dwele's Greater than One and Tamia's Beautiful Surprise


Tamia-Beautiful Surprise

 



Dwele-Obey