Brian McKnight
Gemini
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McKnight has always been a smoothie with a composer-producer pedigree. Gemini is all pillowy production and well-plotted romantic pop -- and when he revs up the tempo (on "What You Gonna Do"), his nice-guy hip-hop gets off on the good foot, even if it's wearing a Pierre Cardin slipper.
On his ninth full-length, Brian McKnight does what he does best, lacing mellow bedroom-ready beats with romantic cooing and ultra-smooth serenades. Laid-back but impressive all around, Gemini features the single "Every Time You Go Away" and a great collaboration with Brooklyn emcee Talib Kweli ("Everything I Do").
Since hooking up with puff Daddy and Trackmasterz on 1997's Anytime,
Read More R&B smoothie Brian McKnight has stuck to the same pattern: He writes, produces and plays on an LP's length of slow jams but also enlists hip-hop producers to spice up each CD with club-friendly potential singles. Little has changed on his eighth album. The Buffalo-born singer gets points for using real drums, bass and guitar on cozy, nostalgic tracks such as the ballad "What We Do Here," but his lyrics remain rote, his melodies lazy. McKnight's groovy side is represented by two commendable cuts, "Whatcha Gonna Do," with Juvenile and Akon, and "She." But the gospel finale, "Me and You," sounds like a late submission to last year's abysmal tribute to The Passion of the Christ. For the most part, this reliably cautious Gemini shows only one side to his musical personality: the businessman.
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