August Alsina is the saviour.
The saviour of a musical genre.
2014 is the year that should go down in history as the year R’n’B was saved. The saviour, a 21 year old from New Orleans, Louisiana in the United States.
August Anthony Alsina inked his record deal with Def Jam Records sometime in the August of 2012, aged 19.
During the months between then and the release of this debut album, an album that prompted this article, Alsina has hustled hard — releasing mixtapes, singles, touring and making friends in the industry.
Testimonies by industry colleagues would rubbish the claims that he has a ‘flippant nature’, and counter him being accused of childish outbursts with a ‘holier than thou’ attitude towards people — especially those working within the media that helps power his fame.
Listening to Alsina’s tracks ‘I Luv This Shit’ and ‘Numb’ it can quite easily appear that the urban music machine has simply churned out a new model of R’n’B kid, but if you go no deeper — you do Alsina and the genre a massive disservice.
‘Saviour’ is a word that shouldn’t be thrown around too often, for if the promise is unfulfilled — the genre suffers further. And let’s not be mistaken, R’n’B had been in a bad place for some time.
The days of acts like R Kelly and Boys II Men have been behind the R’n’B genre for some time, as a once dominate musical style faded into an auto-tuned pop background. T-Pain became the new Babyface as traditional smoother voices went out of style, even today it could be argued that T-Pain has been replaced by Future … an evolution of the auto-tuners generation.
Then, out of nowhere August Alsina comes along. A young man with the ability to sit alongside trap rapper Yo Gotti on a club track, but also sweetly serenade the ladies on a track like ‘Kissin’ On My Tattoos’ — it could be argued that this isn’t anything new, Jason Derolo or Chris Brown? Maybe so — but singing over the same nineties / early two-thousands style beats when R’n’B really thrived. Key perhaps, more so than beat selection is Alsina’s delivery — heartfelt, emotive and smooth.
R’n’B is pianos and melodies — and Alsina delivers that. R’n’B is smooth delivery, emotive lyrics and head nodding vibes. It’s a genre that evolves, changes for the worse but sticks around in one form or another.
August Anthony Alsina at the tender age of 21 is being tasked with bringing back a genre.
No pressure.
