The Foreign Exchange

It's been more than four years since Foreign Exchange's mildly groundbreaking first album, Connected. An online collaborative effort between Okayplayer forum friends Little Brother's Phonte and virtually unknown Dutch producer Nicolay, it was a refreshing mix of Nicolay's organic, soul- and electronica-inflected beats and Phonte's everyman raps. It was solid, old-school hip-hop: beats, rhymes, dropped knowledge and head-snapping melodies. It was an underground gem, and many eagerly awaited the follow-up.

Things have changed, though. Little Brother's terrific major label debut, The Minstrel Show, flopped, and Nicolay has since moved to Phonte's home state of North Carolina, where the two have been busy putting Foreign Exchange's follow-up, Leave It All Behind, to wax. And while some may argue that if it ain't broke, don't fix it, Phonte and Nicolay, apparently, would disagree. The album is virtually devoid of rapping, replaced instead with Phonte's surprisingly adequate crooning. The production template differs little, though. The same marriage of electronica, soul and hip-hop is back, and it's just as good as it was before.

The songs themselves, however, are hit-and-miss. The highlight is "Take Off The Blues," a soothing, head-nodding joint that hums along just right, with Phonte's singing and Nicolay's well-placed horns diving in and out of each other perfectly. "Something to Behold" is a gem too, with the cascading voices of Munsinah and Darien Brockington riding the slightly grimier beat with ease, leading to a much-needed Phonte verse at the end.

The template, though–easy-listening, jazzy beats with some inoffensive singing layered on top–wears thin quickly. Tedium sets in about midway through the album, and it only really lifts with "Something to Behold" at the end, which is where Phonte deigns to bless his audience with what he does best. While hip-hop artists have been successful in varying degrees reinventing themselves as singers and pop artists–think Outkast's Andre 3000 and, more so, Goodie Mob's Cee-Lo Green–Phonte just doesn't have the artistic chops (yet) to quite pull it off.

Were the listener to not know how great of a rapper Phonte is, and how well Phonte’s rhymes and Nicolay's beats blended together on their last album, Leave It All Behind wouldn't be such a disappointment. While it won't set anyone's world on fire, it does work well enough as an R&B album. As a Foreign Exchange album, though? Not so much.

—Matthew Mundy
11.03.08

The second Foreign Exchange album reverses the rapping/singing split of the first. Not only is Leave It All Behind much more an R&B album than 2004's Connected -- it's more an R&B album than a lot of modern releases filed in that section, given that Phonte slips into MC mode only twice while otherwise putting his sensitive singing voice to full use. Even more nuanced and textured, and therefore more musical than Connected, Leave It All Behind is a concise and complete set of songs that brings out the best of both producer Nicolay and Phonte. More than ever, Nicolay's mellow but moving productions have that lingering, memory-triggering effect mastered by the late J Dilla, and a multitude of shades is cast: dreamy folk-soul that ranks with the Beauty Room and latter-day 4hero, lean and contemporary constructions that would fit within any adult-oriented R&B station's playlist, deceptively frictional backdrops that bridge hip-hop to West London broken beat, and even the intermittent unclassifiable moment, with several styles thrown into swirls of crescendo-enhanced dramatics. Joined by Connected accomplices Darien Brockington and YahZarah (her lead turn on "If She Breaks Your Heart" sounds even more like a lost Stevie/Minnie collaboration than the Jungle Fever soundtrack original), as well as Muhsinah (an earthbound Georgia Anne Muldrow), Phonte does not deliver knockouts, yet he is not out of his depth and never reaches beyond his grasp, exuding warmth and sincerity as effectively as anyone praised for inhuman range. Even when his lyrics deal in the less complicated aspects of relationships, his voice provides a gently bittersweet tint, as a man with his guard down whose articulations are neither reactionary nor based on some false posture. And with love as its core rather than impulsive lust, as well as its unified feel, the album is not just a unique and exceptional R&B album but also a soundtrack or means of communication -- when heat-of-the-moment resentment, a lump in the throat, or anxious longing get in the way -- for a real-life adult relationship. ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide