Chrisette Michele

Chrisette Michele is no joke. She’s also one of the most successful R&B singers that you’ve probably never heard of! The accomplished songstress has Grammy nominations, BET Award nominations and a Gold-selling album under her belt already but she’s yet to cross over the line from critical acclaim to commercial superstardom. But with Ne-Yo serving as the producer/architect behind the lushly spacey Epiphany, Michele is poised to garner even more accolades and break through to the mainstream success that she’s hovering on the cusp of!. Her voice is a delicious little dream and she coos over a jazzy/pop mix of songs that have a bit of a smooth jazz and lite soul tinge, but rest assured. Miss Michele isn’t drifting into dentist office tunes any time soon!

The album’s title track has a deft, unexpected combination of percussion and piano, while “Blame it on Me” is the album’s most soulful jam. “The Notebook” is a semi-ballad, while “All I Ever Think About” is a true, soft R&B sensation where it’s all about Michele and her lovely, lovely pipes. There’s romance behind “Playin’ Our Song,” but it’s sassy rather than sappy. “Another One” is where Michele shines like the sun, as her voice asserts itself among other female harmonists. She doesn’t belt out her material in diva-like fashion, like, say Mary J. Blige, but that’s simply because she doesn’t need to! This girl has a damn fine, utterly impressive range, and she isn’t shy about demonstrating it on Epiphany. Here’s to hoping that the rest of the world experiences that same Epiphany sooner than later.

— Amy Sciarretto
05.28.09

Chrisette Michele's very good debut, I Am, won a couple Grammys but did not did not have corresponding commercial success. None of its three singles reached the Top 20 of the R&B/Hip-Hop chart. The album itself barely dented the Top 30 of the Billboard 200. She co-wrote each one of its songs and passed on the opportunity to record "Irreplaceable," later taken on by Beyoncé and made into one of 2006's biggest singles. Consider all of this, Grammy part excepted, and it's understandable why Chrisette would be steered in a different direction. Chrisette evidently did some of the driving, since one of the inspirations behind the album's title refers to the realization that she can benefit by allowing more input from songwriters. She co-writes only three of these songs, with executive production from "Irreplaceable" writer Ne-Yo, who also gets writing credit on six songs; Chuck Harmony touches several cuts, while smaller contributions come from the likes of Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, Allstar, Bei Maejor, and Tim Bosky. Given the different strategy, and the fact that none of the producers or songwriters here had anything to do with I Am, it's a little surprising that the results are not all that different. It's also somewhat ironic that it's less rounded; the material, while mostly well-crafted, runs together as a block of slow, serious songs broken up by only a couple brief upswings in energy. Chrisette, naturally, sounds outstanding throughout, as a supernaturally talented vocalist whose songs are nonetheless easily relatable to anyone going through a breakup -- or, to a significantly lesser extent here, newfound love -- but the album could have really used more rhythmic punch than a token throwback strutter. ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide