Member-only story
In My Own Words, The Most Underrated R&B Album of All Time
In 2006, my tastes in music were starting to really take shape. As a child who grew up on hip-hop giant 50 Cent, G-Unit, and southern rap legends T.I. and Young Jeezy, I had barely expanded my musical horizons past the rap genre. My unparalleled love of R&B grew under my mom’s musical palette, growing around Keyshia Cole, Mary J. Blige, and Usher, singing out their pain with such immense beauty. I grew to adore Chris Brown during his early career, exploding onto the scene with such youthful exuberance that was contagious to a young, developing music lover. It was so cool to see someone that wasn’t even out of his teens become a superstar. While Chris Brown’s debut album remains great, it hasn’t particularly age well. One R&B artist that debuted around this time, however, has aged more and more gracefully by the year is Ne-Yo.
As someone who was raised on BET’s music video show 106 & Park, my introduction to Ne-Yo was the music video for “So Sick”. It was immediately eye-grabbing, shot in a totally new setting. It’s shot in Aspen, Colorado, with mountains of snow, something I had…
