Vibe.com, December 19th, 2005
Indeed, if hip hop were high school, Remy would be the seductively magnetic girl in the back of the classroom whom other chicks quietly want to befriend and guys secretly want to date.
She isn’t the cutest, sexiest, flyest, or most popular, but she’s charismatic and unfiltered, and that’s what makes her debut CD, There’s Something About Remy: Based on a True Story, a compelling listening experience.
To achieve the album’s moody mix of bass-heavy party songs and soulful jams, Remy recruited an all-star team of producers, including Cool & Dre, the Alchemist, Swizz Beatz, David Banner, and Scott Storch, among others. The result is a dark and sometimes emotionally heavy affair, largely anchored by evocative string arrangements and sped-up soul samples that often recall M.O.P.’s finest material (without all the screaming and testosterone).
Further augmenting her endearingly rough-around-the-edges persona, the 24-year-old single mother doesn’t immediately bare her soul on wax. She grabs your attention with playfully profane, boastful rhymes like “Bilingual,” which finds the Bronx native — accompanied on the hook by reggaeton sensation Ivy Queen — fantasizing about videotaping her sexual exploits with a male groupie: “Your husband’s a homo he love to get suck / Likes dildos and vibrators shoved in his butt.”
But while Remy enjoys bragging about her street smarts and sexual prowess, the album’s strongest moments are autobiographical narratives such as “My Life” and “Crazy.” Most notably, “Still” stands out for its deeply personal glimpse of her troubled relationships with her baby’s father, older brother, and absentee parents: “Mommy, you was the one that named me, but you didn’t raise me...I guess it was all the drugs you was on, all the beatings you got from my foul step-pops.”
Remy’s disarming willingness to convey the heartbreaking details of her hard-knock life is rivaled only by her knack for crafting complex and cinematic story raps like “Guilty,” a chilling tale of a hit-and-run car accident, and “Secret Location,” about a drug queenpin living a double life. But True Story’s greatest gem is “What’s Going On?” a somber ballad about abortion featuring Keyshia Cole asking for mercy in the chorus: “Forgive me, my baby...never wanted to let you go, baby / We’ll meet again, I know, baby.”
Other highlights include “Thug Love,” a singsongy duet with Big Pun that was originally recorded for his final album, 2000’s Yeeeah Baby, and “Feels So Good,” a radio-friendly rap ballad with R&B; newcomer Ne-Yo. Thankfully, Remy keeps the cameos to a minimum, with Fat Joe making the only other guest appearance on the synth-heavy “Tight.”
Of course, 16 songs is a long time to spend with anyone, especially a growing artist who’s still finding herself on the mic, but Remy succeeds by virtue of her winning personality alone. And although the belated release of this particular album doesn’t signal the arrival of the next great female rapper, it does introduce a fresh, intriguing new voice to the mix.
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