When I first heard about Ryan “R-Les” Leslie around 2003 I was introduced to him as the next big thing when it came to multitalented singers/producers in rnb. While the producer Ryan Leslie has had some sort of a breakthough a few years back, penning hits for Usher, New Edition, Donell Jones and of course Cassie, the artist R-Les remains pretty anonymous to the public. Things could have been very different if Universal Music hadn’t shelved what was meant to be his debut album, Just Right, in 2005 due to the fact that his singles failed to climb the charts. Still today, that album remain as one of my favorite unreleased albums ever.

Now it’s 2009 and Ryan Leslie is finally back on a big label with his first album of his own. And though the singles he has released throughout the past 12 months or so has been of various quality, I still had some expectations for this self titled album.

First of all, it’s always dull to find out that you’ve already heard most of the tracks when you listen to a new album for the first time. A few leaked songs might be ok but here’s the majority of songs been out for a spin for quite a while. When the album has been delayed for more than six months, shouldn’t they have had time making new songs, releasing a product that’s interesting enought to make us support R-Les by buying his album? We already knew ’Diamond Girl’, ‘I.R.I.N.A.’ and ‘Addiction’ are decent tracks, but none of them stands out like ‘Used 2 Be’ and ‘The Way That You Move Girl’ from the unreleased album a few years back.

One thing that bothers me is that Ryan Leslie seems stuck in the middle between a modern, hiphop-influence and a more neo-soul oriented sound. That isn’t necessarily a problem or a weakness, but on this album I feel that he should have choosen one way or the other. And while I love the club tracks that Ryan Leslie has done throughout the years, I must say that it’s surprisingly a ballad that stays on my mind after listening to the album in it’s entirety. ‘Gibberish’ is, as the title hints, a song that lyrically doesn’t express anything but just pure gibberish, but the melody, the tasteful use of autotune and the beautiful production adds together for a great finish to an all over decent album and tells me Ryan Leslie still has some great potential.

Ryan Leslie - Gibberish (written/produced by Ryan Leslie)

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