June 08, 2005 @ 12:36 pm

Keyshia Cole - The Way It Is (A&M)

by: Rondell Conway

Keyshia Cole just can’t get it right. In this age, when most women know why a man just is not that into a woman, the Oakland native keeps getting stepped on by love. But while her relationship troubles may have been a painful experience, her heartache makes for a stirring debut. Not since Mary J. Bliges’s My Life has an R&B songstress been able to evoke a woman’s pain while bringing to mind a man’s guilt with the soul power of such an earnest voice.

Pushed to the brink by an unfaithful beau, Cole starts off the album with the Krucial Keys-helmed “I Just Want It to Be Over.” Climactic horns and hard-charging warrior drums provide a rousing backdrop as the diminutive diva chants: “I don’t wanna love you / Don’t wanna need you / Just wanna leave you.”

And when enough is enough, the explosive “Guess What?” finds her trading barbs with Jadakiss. Cole spits, “Guess what nigga, I’m leaving you / Guess what, I’m needing my keys from you,” and Kiss fires back, ”You wanna act hard? / Yeah, I’m a give you your keys back / Just gimme my platinum and black cards.”

Where most scorned female singers tune out the audience with shrill, surface-dwelling complaints, Cole turns her painful experiences into a transcendently artistic cry. Jilted but resilient, she resolves to try again on “Thought You Had My Back,” only to find more unhappiness. Tiring of her mistreatment, Cole returns the favor on the smoldering mid-tempo groove “I Should Have Cheated.” And when this good girl does go bad, she tells her side of the story on the hip hop-soul-tinged “You’ve Changed.” Borrowing from Jay-Z’s “Song Cry,” Cole plays the role of the woman wronged by the Brooklyn rapper.

Though all’s supposedly fair in love and war, someone should have told Cole she, too, would be blindsided by the convictions of the heart. On “Love,” the album’s most breathtaking moment, it’s hard not to give in to the sheer range and power of her quintessential rhythm and blues pipes. Rising and falling between pensive strings and a heartrending guitar, a lovesick Cole gives a lesson on the artistic use of melisma that American Idol wannabes should heed. Searching for the answers, she sings: “Love never knew what I was missing, but I knew once we start kissing, I found you.”

While The Way It Is won’t offer you the sophisticated musical experience of, say, Alicia Keys’s Diary, Cole’s ability to belt to her heart’s content saves the album from its inconsistent production. Even when paired with the gifted Kanye West on her lead single, “I Changed My Mind,” Cole uplifts his rather understated effort. To an off-kilter pitter-patter, she injects a sweet melody that makes the definitive breakup tune bittersweet.

Cole’s voice alone, however, can’t redeem the shoddy production work on the bedroom teaser “Down and Dirty” or the superficial subject matter of “Superstar.” While the former offers a formulaic bump-and-grind beat pattern and cheesy strings, the latter sounds dangerously similar to an Usher tune of the same name, down to the hook, melody, and Usher clone from the unknown group Metro City.

Despite the rookie miscues, Cole must be commended for a superb vocal performance. Though she’s had her folly with love, her pure emotion gives you something you can feel. That, she gets right every time.

Article tags: Keyshia Cole, Shyne, Kanye West, West Coast 

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