’90s R&B artist gets cloudy…
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[7.10]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: For the entirety of its intro, “Boyfriend” is a second away from allowing its clutter to overwhelm it, but Ama and producer Cass Lowe understand what to do with the disparate elements. The business of the beat evokes the potential of the illicit affair detailed in the lyrics: the heart quickens with the percussion overload, the mind gets cloudy under the roving synths, there’s a sense of lust inherent in the vocal performance. Then the allure crashes with a pep talk: “Sho, don’t fuck this up/I got a boyfriend/Yeah…” The song turns quiet and all that follows in Ama’s voice adds another side to the story: reminders, rejoinders, relief, regret. It’s amazing.
[9]
Scott Mildenhall: This sounds like it could be from a movie — not playing in the background, but as part of a concept-album-cum-musical starring Shola Ama herself. Not sure what it’d be about — it would probably reject traditional narrative structures — but it would be hyper-stylised, all filmed at night in glamorous London. And judging by that shakuhachi sample at the start, featuring a cameo from Peter Gabriel. The song is both better and worse than this blurb makes it sound.
[8]
Jer Fairall: Immaculately tasteful in such a way that immediately identifies this as a British R&B cut. Too many of the track’s attempts at maturity arrive in the form of a particular set of pan-ethnic flourishes that will remind many an early ’90s cable subscriber of Wild Orchid, or some other such white-collar porn. Strip this down to just the gentle click and hum of the quietest moments of the accompaniment and the dexterous melodicism of Shola’s vocal, though, and this would be the kind of minor gem worthy of Solange’s last EP. Remixers, you know what to do.
[6]
Iain Mew: When the elements of “Boyfriend” melt away to leave clicks and Shola Ama’s self-recrimination, it’s moving. Most of it is down to her performance and the narrative, though, and I would prefer a version that kept the quiet tension all the way through and didn’t pile on samples and swishes and echoing drums and everything else.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: The despair&b and ’90s revival trends are converging, as they were always going to, to the point where I’m not convinced this mass of shakuhachi, distant porno guitars, big portentous drums and cheating wasn’t exhumed from some lurid trip-hop thriller. (Sliver, say.) If this means actual ’90s acts like Ama get renewed, timely-sounding careers, I don’t mind, and “Boyfriend” chases its drama well enough for something that’s the narrative equivalent of the Christian eye-bounce. I just wish it had a bridge.
[6]
Alfred Soto: The production is R&Bcholia done right enough to send a message to Noah Shebib: minimal echo, mysterious percussive taps, horn samples. Ama’s performance — tentative, frightened, tiptoeing past hysteria — helps too. “Sho don’t fuck this up,” she tells herself, aware that singers whose abortive careers started in the late nineties don’t get many second chances.
[7]
Will Adams: “Sho, don’t fuck this up” is the devastating moment of pause, when the sound is sucked into nothing, and Shola Ama takes a single breath. The decision stares her down from across the room, and the pounding of giant snares and bass swells clouds her vision. We’re left with a cliffhanger, which is either chilling or frustrating but overall bracing.
[8]
Brad Shoup: One of the largest loud/quiet gaps I’ve encountered on the charts; Ama sprinkles enough elements from that burst-dam opening theme to maintain cohesion. The sonic space is lush, like an Ice Choir composition overseen by a restorer. I love the drum sound, the bell motif, the muggy surge of guitar exhaust. I’m not wild about the lyrical concept — 15 seconds of deliberation stretched over three minutes — but it ends with a flat irresolution.
[7]
Anthony Easton: Never has an adultery anthem struck me as so exquisitely tired, like she isn’t going home with someone not her boyfriend not because she has ethical problems, but because of some combination of the banal comfort of monogamy and her self-esteem. There are fantastic lines (“casualty of your hotel suite!”) and a seductive tease throughout, and an unresolved plot. We never figure out what she will do.
[8]
Tara Hillegeist: After the poise and clarity Shola brings to the table for “Boyfriend,” if I wasn’t over artists like The Weeknd’s failed attempts at meaningful emotion before, I am now. The ambiguous progression of “Sho don’t fuck this up/I got a boyfriend/yeah/I got a boyfriend/you didn’t know I had a boyfriend/no/I didn’t say I had a boyfriend” registers purely on a craft level alone — illuminating, in only a few lines, uncertainties typically elided in the mornings after — but the controlled turbulence she layers into her line delivery elevates what could easily have stayed a chance encounter on the dance floor into the stage for a swooning mystery play. I refuse to believe in a God that can’t break down to “Boyfriend.”
[8]