For a brief period in the late '90s,
Rodney Jerkins was the hottest producer in R&B, scoring hits with everyone from
Mary J. Blige and
Destiny's Child to
the Spice Girls in a style that mixed the hard funk of
Dr. Dre with
Whitney Houston-style big diva dramatics. Then
the Neptunes happened, and pretty much overnight
Jerkins was last year's model. The Atlanta-based producer has never actually retired, but recent clients include
Fantasia and
Lindsay Lohan, not exactly the cream of the A list.
Jerkins' first album under his own name,
Versatility, will do little to change the producer's commercial fortunes. Billed as an instrumental album, the songs aren't quite: there are sung hooks by anonymous R&B divas, and many songs feature
Jerkins not quite so much rapping as chatting over the beat as if he's talking over his works in progress to a studio visitor. Overall, the album simply sounds like a set of unfinished demos that normally would be making the rounds to artists and managers looking for a new collaborator. Why this was released to the general public is a bit of a mystery. ~ Stewart Mason