Normani – ‘Dopamine’ review: belated, yes, but also brilliant

Followers anticipating a brand new album can get fairly naggy – simply ask Rihanna, whose pivot from pop colossus to billionaire businesswoman hasn’t stopped fixed questions on ‘R9’. Normani, who rose to prominence alongside Camila Cabello in US girl-group Fifth Concord, is aware of her long-awaited solo file has develop into a working joke. Famously, she tweeted again in July 2018: “I’ve my album title y’all.” Almost 4 years later, with the album nonetheless not on the discharge slates, one Twitter wag replied: “Did you overlook it?”

So, when Normani lastly introduced this album’s title in February, she did so on a playfully titled new web site: wheresthedamnalbum.com. In interviews, she’s attributed the LP’s prolonged gestation to private points – lately, she’s supported each of her mother and father by means of most cancers therapy – and to a musical id disaster. “I do know what it feels wish to be ready to place out data that I don’t imagine in,” Normani mentioned in February.

For that reason, it’s hardly shocking that ‘Dopamine’ doesn’t embody Normani’s superb 2019 launch single ‘Motivation’, a summery membership banger she’s since dismissed as too “simple”. Nevertheless, the album does discover area for her three-year-old Cardi B collab ‘Wild Facet’, a sultry, Aaliyah-sampling R&B bop, although it’s sequenced fairly tellingly on the very finish.

Nothing right here is kind of as infectious as ‘Motivation’, although the Janet Jackson-esque funk bop ‘Take My Time’ – a music title that may’t not look pointed – comes shut. Elsewhere, Normani and producers together with Tommy Brown (Ariana Grande, The Weeknd) and Stargate (Rihanna, Beyoncé) usually cleave to a modern midtempo: throughout 13 tracks, she glides between glistening intercourse jams (‘All Yours’, ‘Lights On’), atmospheric R&B (‘Insomnia’, ‘Distance’) and even a swaggering strip membership anthem (‘Nonetheless’). Weirdly, a sparse monitor not too long ago launched as a single, ‘1.59’, is without doubt one of the few sluggish cuts right here. Solely Normani’s Whitney Houston-style spoken intro – “flip me up, uh, flip me up” – makes a lot of an impression.

‘Dopamine’ additionally comprises a skittering duet with James Blake, ‘Tantrums’, on which Normani delivers one of many album’s punchiest lyrics: “You’re no person – you’re simply someone I used to fuck sometimes.” It’s typical of an album that shimmers with a cool, calm and sure, unhurried confidence. It might have taken six years, however ‘Dopamine’ sounds just like the (rattling) album Normani was meant to make all lengthy.