Moving On

Album review

In 2011, K'Jon was primed to release the follow-up to I Get Around, his first album for Universal Republic. There were multiple delays, however, and an April 2011 single, "Good Morning," stalled at number 78 on the Billboard R&B/Hip Hop chart. That second Universal Republic album, titled Oxygen, never appeared. K'Jon then resurfaced on Shanachie in April 2012 -- a change that possibly inspired this album's title. While he's with a new label, he hasn't made a complete break from his past, as he makes multiple references to his number 12 R&B hit from 2009, "On the Ocean." And he could still use an editor; Moving On is nearly an hour in length and has a few lulls. It begins with an intro that leads into an interlude that leads into a song that has its own built-in spoken intro, and several songs that follow have extended and/or spoken intros as well. In "Side One Interlude," he takes a shot at the airwaves: "Do you remember not too long ago, when R&B ruled the radio? Now it's all cold and predictable." It's easy to sympathize with a singer who's been active for over a decade and has experienced only fleeting popularity thus far; for several years, very few male R&B singers who sound like men (rather than boys), such as K'Jon, have enjoyed sustained success. If pop-oriented and adult-oriented R&B stations happened to be a little more adventurous, a handful of these songs -- effective showcases for K'Jon's casual yet passionate and never over-sold vocals -- would have a good shot at frequent rotation. While nothing eclipses "On the Ocean," there's at least half-an-hour of solid, mostly mature, contemporary R&B here.
© Andy Kellman /TiVo