MNEK - Language

The Guardian 60

(Virgin)

Uzoechi Emenike is best known for his Top 10-scaling duets with more famous artists including Stormzy and the Swedish singer Zara Larsson. It’s a state of affairs the musician is immediately keen to flag up and rectify on his debut album. The cringey but admittedly memorable opener Background is half moody electro track, half skit revealing the right way to pronounce his moniker (it’s emin-e-kay), before Correct delivers an onslaught of camp braggadocio outlining why listeners should respect the south Londoner as a solo proposition.

The album bears out these boasts, to an extent. Correct is an infectiously spasmodic slice of afrobeats-infused pop, while Crazy World’s crackling beats and insistent soul samples provide an arresting bed for Emenike’s dreamy vocals. Occasionally, however, it can feel as if he is courting the charts in a slightly soulless way: Colour, a tropical pop track featuring US star Hailee Steinfeld and umpteen zeitgeisty production bells and whistles, is cookie-cutter stuff made for Spotify playlists.

Fri Sep 07 09:00:03 GMT 2018

The Guardian 60

(Virgin EMI)

Uzoechi Emenike is 23, but first signed a publishing deal at the age of 14. The south Londoner has written for Madonna, Kylie and Beyoncé, and hauled home barrowloads of chart placings and awards while impatience grew for his own album. He’s perfectly poised, but a false step now might be fatal.

Thankfully, MNEK, he is at pains to remind us on his solo debut, doesn’t make false steps; he’s far too assiduous a scholar of prime pop production – Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the Neptunes, Teddy Riley – to slip up. “I was getting paid before I was getting drunk” he asserts on Correct, a playful, dancehall-inflected brag. Tongue deftly deploys hair-flicking retro flourishes, an impeccable modern crispness and an irresistible “tippee-too-tippee-tee-tippee-ta-ta-ta” refrain, while Girlfriend alludes to the staccato delivery of Destiny’s Child as MNEK admonishes a lover who isn’t being true to his other other half: “neither you or your story’s straight”.

Sun Sep 09 07:00:52 GMT 2018