Review Summary: Many consider the arena of modern r&b and soul to be a cliche, but Donell Jones challenges that notion on Where I Wanna Be, serving up underrated neo-soul just a couple of months before y2k yielded a new wave of the amalgam genre.
It's not difficult to sympathize with detractors of contemporary r&b. The genre has suffered from commercial over-saturation since it started gaining traction in the 1990s, resulting in a near omnipresent body of music that heavily favors the single over the LP format. This can make it feel exhausting to sift through, even for music digging enthusiasts. Combine that with heavy use of melisma, same-y production, and lyrics that are often forgettable (at times, even trite!) and you've got yourself a recipe for some valid criticism. But, when done well, these same elements elevate r&b to some of the highest heights music can reach. Certain albums showcase this balance with such grace that it's tragic when they don't make their way through the cultural game of Telephone we all play.
Where I Wanna Be is one such release: Donell's only record to ever go platinum, and a fascinating look into the ambivalence of a player in an over-saturated mythos at the turn of the century. It's a rewarding listening experience for devotees, dabblers, or the unacquainted who find themselves open to the particular emotionality of this music.
Those who owned a radio in the late '90s have probably heard the album's opener, “U Know What's Up.” Filled with summer nostalgia, layered call and response
oooohs frame our narrator's thinly veiled but clever pitch to an“other” woman. He likely hasn't even met her yet--this tune serves as the fantasy introduction of their story. It's all very catchy, with a syncopated “oooooh say what say what say what / yeah / oooooh girl you know what's up” bouncing rhythmically atop a deft fusion of new jack swing and boom bap. The song is one of the most straightforward here, but it does let the listener know: this Donell cat, and not just his love-object, knows what's up. Smooth and stylish, right from the outset
Where I Wanna Be reminds the listener that it's aged surprisingly well (21 years this month, in fact!).
But the tune accomplishes another goal: setting up the album's concept. It seems to tell the story of a man torn between his boo and a woman who 1.) piques his interest, but is also caught up in her own romantic situation, or 2.) simply serves as a muse for heteromasculine rumination. (Queue Nelly's 2000 “Dilemma” and Usher's 2013 “You Make Me Wanna...”). After he notices the new girl on the first track, or more figuratively, allows himself to engage with the idea of cheating on his boo, he waits impatiently for a new flame (you guessed it, a cutie he caught eyes with at the club) to meet him at a hotel in “Shorty (Got Her Eyes On Me).” Ultimately, he's stood up, leading him to express his internal struggle on the title track, promising his boo that he will return after sowing his wild oats (sorting out his “youthful lust” as he refers to it).
See when you love someone / You just don't treat them bad / Oh how I feel so sad / Now that I want to leave / She's crying her heart to me / How could you let this be? / I just need time to see / Where I want to be / Where I want to be / I'm sorry baby
While it may seem a tacky or immature approach to adult relationships, the earnestness with which the album presents this 'case study' of romance and coming-of-age through the typical r&b Casanova archetype is intriguing in and of itself, not to mention the lush, beautiful production that accompanies it. The climax to this introductory trio of songs sets the stage for the rest of the album: reflections on powerful and imperfect human experiences, certainly those that inform the canvas of the contemporary r&b sound even to this very day: love, lust, possession, infidelity, physical intimacy, companionship, and heartbreak, all under a specific gauzy, moody filter, paired with limber genre fusion heavily indebted to Jam & Lewis... What makes Donell stand out is his emotive variety and honest songwriting, accomplished without seeming disingenuous or derivative. The other difference is the music itself (which as mentioned is impressively produced), a true early--if only sometimes clunky--neo-soul experience that jumps from pop to gospel to hip-hop to soul to new jack to rock 'n' roll and back, all without breaking a sweat.
Donell's reverence for older styles of r&b is unsurprising--raised by a gospel singer in Chicago, his embrace of these roots leads to organ lines and blues-y guitar hooks a-plenty--but it's never overdone, always balanced with an effective modern sound and strategy. This charming balance of old and new is part of what makes the album continue to shine so many years later. Tightening up engineering from the genuinely '90s debut
My Heart, it was on the follow-up that Donell flexed his unique, masterful ability to lattice organic and technological sounds. This approach, in addition to the self-aware cool that permeates throughout, make
Where I Wanna Be feel like a preview of what would come to define the industry-dominating 2000s sound, and
not just another '90s album of slow jams featuring slow jam artists making slow jam jams about stereotypical slow jam-y subjects. When you combine these strengths with Donell's other songwriting and collaboration credits--early Usher, Silk, and Madonna to name a few--it's easy to argue that he had an impact on the broader r&b scene's evolution and subsequent crossover success that's tragically uncelebrated.
Perhaps, then, it's no coincidence that Joy Orbison sought to remind us of the man over a decade later, simply naming his effective and successful remix of the album's opener “Donell.” While Donell may not be as influential as his peers, neither is he a footnote—he deserves to be mentioned in the same ranks as his r&b contemporaries: Brandy, D'Angelo, Ginuwine, Aaliyah, Alicia, Erykah, Usher, Mariah; I could go on...
Another slept-on of many slept-on crooners borne from the '90s, it seems. Another artist who struggled with being overshadowed by a fiercer predecessor, possibly. A creative blighted by difficult life circumstances and choices, maybe. Or even just another forgettable artist in a homogenized genre, you might say (all
perhaps rightly)--but if you care to take a chance and give Donell's music a spin, this may be his best work. It's no
Voodoo, but it's certainly worth a listen, offering important and under-appreciated context for a popular music movement that shows no sign of letting up even as we move into the second year of this strange decade. Like it or not, nothing stops the neo-soul train.
