Jazmine Sullivan - Reality Show

Jazmine Sullivan
Reality Show
2015
Jazmine Sullivan - Reality Show

There is a trap that listening to Reality Show can set for you. It sounds just like another R&B record, great vocals, solid backing band and some good beats rounding everything out. That's the trap, the reality (pun intended) is that Jazmine Sullivan is going something next level here. She is taking a genre where we thought every ounce of creativity had been squeezed out and brought something completely fresh yet classic to the table. Her vocals are often strained, and her speech is completely vernacular, but her words hold great weight. Sullivan's lyrics are so down to earth and so relate-able that most of Reality Show comes across as just a conversation with a friend, not someone trying to tell you something via lyrics. That is the real strength of this album, it has zero pretension or awareness that these words are anything more than exactly what is on Her mind, and that realness brings some very palpable sense of beauty.

The title of this record is so a pro po beacuse with titles like "#HoodLove" and "Stupid Girl" everything is grounded completely in reality. Even the love songs which should be all about the potential of love and how great it can be are totally about the day to day aspects of life. There are very few issues with this record however. For one despite it's inventiveness in terms of honesty, at times it just becomes the same old R&B that we hear time and time again. There is a paint by numbers aspect to the album, one song is a disco track the other a slow jam, which is something that these kinds of records have done for years and it seems only those in the alt R&B realm are the only ones actually trying to break away from those tropes. Even so the record is really a solid effort from Jazmine and brings something different to a genre that has gone to the same well one to many times.

6.8 out of 10