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Review

Album Review: Shenseea - ALPHA

03/22/2022

You’d be forgiven for thinking global Dancehall phenomenon Shenseea should have released several albums, given her extensive catalogue of music. But no – her debut, full-length feature has only recently dropped. And it was well worth the wait.

Alpha, released via Rich Immigrants and Interscope Records, is not strictly Dancehall at all. With production credits from the likes of Hip Hop producer royalty Scott Storch and Reggae/Dancehall outfit Chimney Records, and overall executive production from Rich Immigrants founder (and long-time collaborator) Rvssian, the album is a very obvious attempt to make Shenseea a crossover artist – as it veers from AfroDancehall to Hip Hop via AfroPop, UK Garage and back again. All the while, though, Rvssian’s EDM-influence is present – which creates an overall theme to the 14 tracks. But none of this is a bad thing - as it means Alpha shows the breadth and depth of Shenseea’s talents extremely well.

Target featuring Tyga, produced by The Stereotypes, is glossy, US-influenced AfroPop as stuttering drum arrangements meet lilting guitars, a winding bassline and some distinctly EDM-influenced, ambient engineering. Can’t Anymore, produced by London On Da Track, shifts Alpha’s focus to AfroDancehall with its signature broken Dancehall clave beat (‘oneeeeee-twooo-and-[three]-and-fourrr’), split between the kick and snare. The complex backing vocal arrangement is particularly pleasing, too.

The Rvssian-produced Deserve It is an intriguing concoction of genres – where a grimy, distorted Trap bass meets hi-hats and strings lifted from UK Garage and its US cousin Two Step, but with the piano line and ethereal engineering of Toronto Alt RnB – while Shenseea’s vocal line, rhythmically and melodically, fits somewhere in between all three. It’s a cleverly-constructed track and one of Alpha’s stand-outs.

R U That featuring 21 Savage and produced by Dr. Luke moves the album into Electro Pop-Rap territory, while the previously-released global smash Lick featuring Megan Thee Stallion hardens this sound up, stripping the arrangement back to something resembling Soca-meets-Trap-meets-Reggaeton. It’s effective and infectious.

Bouncy featuring Offset is produced by RnB/Hip Hop creators Smash David and Western – and moves Alpha’s sound on further, directly into Trap (Drill in the UK) territory. Its stark bass coupled with a haunting, running piano line and incessant hi-hats (minus the usual buzz rolls) make for an atmospheric, engaging listen – and Offset complements Shenseea perfectly.

The Chimney Records/Banx & Ranx-produced Henkel Glue featuring Beenie Man samples Steelie and Clevie’s Gi-Gi Riddim to good effect – hitting an AfroDancehall beat on the verses and choruses with a straighter Dancehall clave on the bridges. It’s all very Rvssian, too – with heavy use of EDM synths and engineering. Beenie is on good form and the pair bounce off each other and the musical backdrop well.

Lying If I Call It Love with Sean Paul features production from Miami duo Cool & Dre as well as Supa Dups – and is the only track on Alpha that resembles anything remotely Reggae. Synth horns run a bubble rhythm almost out of earshot while a guitar skanks in the background, too. But again, EDM is a feature to bring the track kicking and screaming into Rvssian’s 21^st century along with some buzz rolls on the hi-hats and Paul and Shenseea’s appealing vocals.

Rvssian returns to produce Hangover, a track which takes that stuttering, choppy acoustic guitar arrangement Rihanna previously utilised on tracks like Good Girl Gone Bad, and smashes it with a Dancehall clave plus Trap buzz rolls. This creates a modern, Alt RnB fusion – nodding to RiRi’s early work (with a lyrical nod to the Beyonce/Jay-Z hit Drunk in Love, too). Its chord progressions are pleasing, the melodies attractive and the arrangement ingenious – and again, it’s another of Alpha’s stand-out cuts. Body Count, produced by Storch and Illa, leans into smooth, shimmering Dancehall-RnB that takes its influences not least from 80s Soul with is use of synth horns and keys as well as dampened strings. But the beat is ostensibly 21^st century – verging on the EDM with the engineering again.

Egocentric, produced by Slyda Di Wizard and DJ Blackboi, is harder and straighter AfroDancehall with good use of breaks, heavily engineered synth horns and stabbing strings. But the genius here is that the beat is repeatedly mixed up, both in terms of rhythmic arrangement but also in terms of the instruments used. This immediately creates a great deal of peaking and troughing, giving the track pleasing interest and flow. Shen Ex Anthem sees Shenseea bring co-manager Romeich Major on board to produce. AfroDancehall-RnB elements wash over the track across a cleverly stripped-back arrangement where less is more: from the pleasing sax line, to its panpipes via unfussy backing vocals; again, another stand-out from Alpha.

Sun Comes Up sees Shenseea’s six-year-old son Rajerio Lee share writing credits (along with an appearance at the end), with production from Rvssian. It’s another strong track, as here a Dancehall clave has been merged with RnB elements (attractive chord progressions, lilting keys) and hints of Afrobeats arrangements on the secondary drum lines and vocals – with whispers of Trap buzz rolls in the background, too.

2019’s Blessed featuring Tyga closes the album in a Reggaeton style. But Alpha is, in some respects, less about the music and more about showcasing Shenseea as an artist with infinite musical possibilities. The genre-smashing across the tracks has been intentionally done to display her ability to sit in any genre.

She has a fundamentally strong vocal range, dipping down into a low contralto and soaring up into a fairly high soprano (note Lick’s high-up-the-treble-clef arrangement) utilising both her head and chest voices in turn (Can’t Anymore being a good example). She channels Ri-Ri across Hangover, and arguably does a better job than her Barbadian counterpart would: vocally dipping low, then soaring high – from head to chest voice and back again with a full palette of dynamic colours and varying note length in between. It’s perhaps vocally her strongest track and shows Shenseea’s potential for ballads well. It’s also important to note that across the album, the use of vocoder/auto-tune is minimal; clearly, she didn’t need it

Shenseea also makes good use of dynamics – from Deserve It’s sultry, softly-delivered vocal passages to R U That’s more forthright performance – with Body Count being an impressive example of her control over her voice; second in terms of vocal skill only to Hangover. But she also does a strong singjay, too. Bouncy showcases her inventive rhythmic arrangements coupled with peaking and troughing dynamics, while on Henkel Glue she manages to match Beenie beat-for-beat, taking a basic rhythmic pattern and then embellishing it well.

Lyrically, hints of Shenseea’s vulnerability comes through on tracks like Target, as she laments “everything good in my life, I push away”. Sun Comes Up is almost a ballad to her son and the potential that exists even when we feel life has lost its way for us and Hangover deals with a failing relationship. But there’s no denying Alpha is predominantly about female romantic and sexual empowerment. However, to deride it as purely slack (which some reviewers have), would miss the bigger picture.

Shenseea is part of the current crop of Jamaican female artists leading the charge against the entrenched misogyny that still exists in both the music and culture. Yes, Alpha discusses sex in no uncertain, graphic terms (often humorously, too) – but that’s kind of the point. Challenging systemic narratives and views about women and girls is a vital tool at female artists’ disposal, and forms part of their broader social responsibility too. Alpha certainly delivers on these factors – and moreover, Shenseea has done it without falling too often into traps that often come with the system’s idea of female empowerment, notably money and social status.

Overall, Alpha is a quite brilliant offering from Shenseea and all involved. Musically rich and detailed, sweeping across genres, it provides the perfect backdrop for this talented artist to really broaden-out her musical skills. Shenseea is particularly impressive on the vocal-led tracks, and as an album it will stand as one of the strongest releases of 2022 so far – and shows that this infinitely talented artist can now take her career in any direction she wants.