The quest list is pretty intimidating: Timbaland, Danja, Polow Da Don, Kanye West, Ne-Yo, Lil’ Wayne. Huge names? Yes. Fantastic musicians? Without a doubt. At the peak of their career? With the exception of Polow, not really. Keri Hilson’s In A Perfect World… has gone from “very” to “mildly” promising. And I actually think that that does the album a favour. As I wrote in my review of The-Dreams latest effort, anticipation can certainly kill a record. And I’m almost certain that Hilsons debut would have been a huge disappointment if it would’ve been released a year ago.

It starts off pretty lame, ‘Turning Me On’ is okay, but feels (and is) a bit dated. ‘Get Your Money Up’ is one of very few Polow Da Don productions that does absolutely nothing for me (that it sounds like a total Timbaland/Danja rip-off doesn’t exactly help). ‘Return The Favour’ is pretty cool, altough it relies too heavily on the production (which is good but again, Timbaland has spoilt us over the last years. It might’ve been amazing in 2007 though).

Is this it? Mediocre, dated, lacking strong personality? Fortunately, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Boom!: ‘Knock You Down’, produced by Danja (who “returns the favour” (sorry, my bad, couldn’t help it!) by making a track that sounds very much like Polow) featuring Kanye (again, thank you god he doesn’t sing!) and Ne-Yo. It’s one of the best songs so far this year, Ne-Yo (actually) kills it, ridiculous hat or not.

‘Make Love’ is an amazing ballad. ‘Alienated’, which is produced by the most underrated rnb producer out there, Cory Bold (y’all remember his amazing bootlegremixes a couple of years ago right?) is another gem. After ‘The Way I Are’ I would’ve never thought that the best tracks on a Keri Hilson album would be the slow jamz and the mid tempos.

To sum things up, In A Perfect World… is a solid rnb album. The production could definitely’ve been a bit better, especially considering the big names, and sometimes it, oddly enough since Hilson writes/co-writes the majority of the songs, lacks personality. Still, there’s enough good/amazing (I haven’t even mentioned the Akon song, that’s something for you to find out on your own) to outweight the bad/bland. And it’s nice to see rnb debutants who are not teenagers.