Aceyalone – Aceyalone and the Lonely Ones

Album Reviews • Thursday March 26th, 2009 • 12:18 pm

Experimentation is nothing new to L.A. native Aceyalone. A member of numerous hip-hop collectives and a creative artist in his own right, he’s elevated the form of hip-hop concept albums to a level few in that genre are ever likely to reach. And though I’ve taken issue with the fact that some of those concept pieces (notably his RJD2 collaboration Magnificent City) tend to focus more on the through-line than on the individual songs, there’s no arguing that Aceyalone is a talented musician who strives to push hip-hop to its creative limits, screw commerciality. And more often than not, he’s successful.

Still, rarely has he been as concise and spot-on than with his latest, Aceyalone and the Lonely Ones. Striving to recreate the world of ’50s do-wop and ’60s-era Motown, while injecting those sounds with his own modern hip-hop flair, he teams up with L.A. producer Bionik to form the album’s precise mix of past and present. This allows Aceyalone to create an album of tightly constructed, commercially viable hits-in-the-making that, nonetheless, sound almost better as a whole than when broken down into individual parts.

The album’s short and to the point. Aside from the intro and outro, which bookend the concept, nine songs form the whole of The Lonely Ones, and the entire album plays out in fewer than thirty minutes. It’s a testament to the quality of the songs and the concept as a whole that this doesn’t come off sounding like something’s missing. These are songs built around meat-and-potatoes sounds. Get to the hook and let the song play out, the plan goes, rather than waste precious moments on needless repetition. It’s the formula that made Berry Gordy a household name in the ’60s, and the doo-wop touches help emphasize hip-hop’s humble beginnings as a street movement.

It’s hard to know what kind of splash The Lonely Ones will make when it is released at the end of March. The album had been slated for release last winter, then got pushed to February before getting its current release date. It makes me wonder whether Decon’s planning a serious push for the album rather than letting it fall into the void upon release. Otherwise they could be wondering if the hip-hop market, plagued by the clichéd “you can have whatever you want on my motherfucking boat” T-Pain mentality, is even ready for something as honest and unassuming as what Aceyalone’s bringing to the table.

Hopefully it’s the former, because with the right promotion, this album has the potential to revitalize the true R&B sound we’ve been missing for more than a decade on commercial radio. The album shows a willingness to take risks, an ability to craft addictive hooks, and a drive to push hip-hop into a new decade with an element of class. I’m all for that.