One Son Returns With A Soulful R&B Crossover Album
- BuzzSlayers
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
A new album release from One Son comes through with a brilliantly smooth and flowing R&B and soul crossover that hits everything from vintage tonality to fresh and current ones, all while delivering layers of gorgeous textures in color, flavorful melodies, and vocals that are strewn across the record, performed with warm and welcoming tones.
I See You is an album that creates an atmosphere. This is a record that most certainly breeds crossover sounds and tones but still keeps firmly under the R&B umbrella, complete with those soulful performances that give it life and bring in cultural flair.
"Who You Are" starts the record off and does an amazing job of opening the door for the rest of the album itself. This song flows with these robust vocals that come together, harmonize, double up, and give thick and full-bodied sounds when performed together.
The song definitely gives you an idea of the soul and heart of the record right from the start, and the whole thing introduces you to this atmosphere in such a brilliant way.
Having said that, this is also a record that you listen to all the way through, in one shot.
It's just over half an hour long but feels bigger because of how boisterous the record itself is. There are always layers of sounds coming together and loads of depth texturally on each track.
You hear classic and again, vintage soul and even Jazz infusion throughout the hip hop and R&B flows, and it all fits together like puzzle pieces.
So wrapping sections are always deep cuts. There's never any waste of time or small thinking lyrics. All the lyrics go pretty deep. They are conscious, honest, and descriptive, utilizing beats to bounce in between rhythmically and come up with phrasing that is perfect.
"All of You" displays this amazingly. The track falls almost halfway through the record, and again, this showcases the heart of everything. The whole album is very conscious, well-thought-out, and planned, but still has all that heart to showcase.
You can clearly tell this is purely a passion project and that everyone involved really gave it their all.
One Son was able to collect collaborators on this release to the point where each one had their own special and unique flavor to add to the mix of everything, making the entire album something you can't really turn away from.
Vocals can come through smooth, silky, or deep-toned and in your face. Mellow R&B, laid back, and an almost relaxing kind of aesthetic, and this is one of the attributes of the record that really Stands Tall, because you get infected by that feel.
By the time you get a few songs into this album, you are in the vibe with it.
These songs can put you in the moment with them. They sort of melt the world away, and you just become engulfed by the soundscape that you're given.
The sounds of this record swim around in the air that surrounds you and invite you to float alongside.
The mix of soul, R&B, and hip hop is brilliant and completely seamless.
Each song has a bit of a feel of its own, but the whole record comes together in a very cohesive way.
Everything is very consistent, so the atmosphere that's created is always there.
The production on the record is really key because there's a lot of keys and synths that are used along with the beats to help build these semi-cinematic underbellies that a lot of the songs hold on to.
Songs like "Settle Down" give you a lot of these aspects.
Dreamy, floating feeling keys and synthesizers give you a silky tone along with brilliant vocals that are strong; they have a power behind them, but they're all so smooth as those keys are as well.
The energy level of this record is super dynamically balanced. Certain elements of some of the songs get a little bit more intense, but overall, the energy of the record is placed in such a great position, so that you always have that sort of kicked back and relaxed sensation.
A lot of attention was paid to the details when it came to the production of this album.
You can tell all the songs took some time.
Even the mixes of these songs really helped capture the right aesthetic.
I found this whole thing to be inviting.
You find yourself paying attention to lyrics and performances alike, along with being swallowed up by these layers of tones, keys, sounds, textures, and just moods that let you be a part of the record as it flows on.
Now, the record does branch out into certain different directions, but never goes too far out of the way. It's always kind of set in the right space so that the vibe of it all sits firmly where it belongs.
That was obviously well thought out as well.
Like a record that One Son really had quite a vision for, and it does sound like it came out, most likely, very close to that vision.
Of course, there's only one way to find out.
We decided to catch up with the artist to ask him about how this all came to be.
So, while you listen to the record, have a read through of our interview with One Son below.
Remember where you heard it first.
Welcome back! It's great to hear this new record! Let's get into it! I See You is an album with loads of soul infused! Where did this one come from?
Khalid Salaam and I were going to do a project with an R&B artist, so he sent me a few instrumentals. I begin recording songs but then COVID happened and slowed things up. When I got back to the instrumentals, I started writing songs and recording reference tracks. I then got the whole Upperhand Productions team involved. The process was the same even though we worked with different artist, it was just divine timing.
Looks like you are collaborating with some amazing artists on this! How do you get so many talented artists on your tracks?
I find talented artist on the internet and reach out to them. We have a few conversations, to see if we can come up with an agreement when things are finalized, we get to work.
The whole album has a flow to it! How long did this one take you to complete?
It took maybe a year to complete the project. We've been able to do licensing deals for a few of the songs. Depending on the placement it can help the project long term.
Are you doing any live shows now?
The artist is constantly doing shows especially Iddi Singer. He has two songs on I See You. We also released his project titled ONE SON Presents: Afro Heartbeat
It seems you do a good amount of producing.
Did you work with others in terms of the production of this?
The producers for this project are DJ Cassanova he produced Settle Down (Iddi Singer) and Talk To You (Olawale) Khalid Salaam produced Who You Are (Nola) I See You (Yeborah) and Your Lady (Zeyneb) Douglas Rogers produced Heal The World (Iddi Singer) Always (Yolanda) Big Fella produced Meant To Be (T. Brixson) and All Of You (Tayara) Taylor Mcallister produced Take Me There (Tayara)
You have been at this for some time now and doing amazingly! Is there anything you would say to others out there trying to get heard?
Continue to push forward, your time is written in stone for you, but you got to make it happen for yourself and continue to be yourself because everyone else is taken.
Do you write the lyrics for the songs as well?
For the project I See You I wrote 7 songs and co-wrote the other 3 songs.
You also had a hand in the new Afro Heartbeat album. What did you do on that release?
I Executive Produced the project and Big Fella produced the music. Iddi Singer was the artist we worked with. We would get the music and discuss a concept or topic then once we agree he would write the song. So far, we've done two non-exclusive deals with Music Libraries for this project.
What's next for you?
I'm just continuing to create and put good music out. I also enjoy licensing the music for placements in film, and tv that's really my lane. On top of releasing the project I See You, Khalid Salaam and I just released a project called Barry And Smokey.
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