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Underrated: Syleena Johnson/Twista • 'Phone Sex' • ☆☆☆☆☆

Admin | Published on the thu Oct 12, 2017 6:28 pm | 1172 Views

POSTED ON 07/12/2008

Written By Syleena Johnson

Rap Written By Carl Mitchell (Twista)

Produced By Darren Henson & Keith Pelzer

Strings Arranged By Larry Gold

Yes, its already that time of the week, and thank god, as I’ve got a lot of hot tracks to introduce you to! This week found me deliberating into madness, trying to decide on a track from one of my favourite Neo-Soul singer-songwriters flawless catalogue. She’ll probably for that reason, feature in more tracks of the week in future because she really does have a fantastic , quality body of work. For this week, I chose one for the sheer shock at the new writing material, that is explicit sex, she chose on this track from her third album “Chapter 3: The Flesh”. Even though she had previously written about domestic violence (the beautifully performed “Hit On Me”) so she wasn’t exactly alien to shocking concepts, this new sexually demanding Syleena really made me see her in a different light and I loved it.

On the track, producers Darren Henson & Keith Pelzer (Floetry, Truth Hurts) who are renowned to anyone who loves them some Neo-Soul and common collaborator and legend of string arrangements (see countless artists and tracks from Darkchild to Timbaland to Kanye West) lay down the most eloquent, lush arrangement for Syleena’s beautiful voice to ride over. They start with a gorgeous piano intro and then have Twista rap over the preceding string staccato which also runs through the best part of the track for me, the chorus, with its catchy chant of “on this phone sex” over Syleena’s throaty vocals. Both the rap and the dirtier than dirty lyrics from Syleena over such a classically-inspired and performed score throw you completely off guard but its absolute genius and is simply awe-inspiring. Even though Janet has done plenty of gorgeous sex tracks, the fact that Syleena has such a classically powerful and trained voice really helps her on this track and gives a new slant to it.


And this is the reason I chose this particular Syleena track as my first feature on her, because it presented a completely new view of her as did the album which showed girl definitely getting her sexy on as did the booklet down to the classic topless shot. Unlike a lot of people I’m not critical of women like Syleena and Janet who choose to celebrate their bodies and sexuality in their songs because anyone can say what they want, these ladies have the talent to back it up and damn, if you’ve got it like these two gorgeous women definitely have – flaunt it.

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