Album Review: Jazmine Sullivan Commands Respect With “Love Me Back”

Jazmine Sullivan – Love Me Back
3 stars out of 5

Jazmine Sullivan has returned with the follow-up to her debut album Fearless, and this time, not only is she fighting back in the arena of love, but she’s also fighting back against the sophomore slump. Her singles “Holding You Down (Going In Circles)” and “10 Seconds” are definitely stand out tracks from the album, which seems to be inconsistent in the song selection, but always consistent when it comes to Jazmine’s vocal prowess. The album dips and dives emotionally, taking the listener on an almost too-short seemingly rollercoaster with Ms. Jazmine. The biggest drop in the pit of your stomach comes with the tired, cliched, and just skip-worthy and really bad Ne-Yo duet on “U Get On My Nerves”. Jazmine starts off the album channeling Prince and all his female muses of times past and ends up in the islands with a staccato soul clap.

The standout track on the album has to be the Salaam Remi-helmed uptempo “Love Me Long Time” which stays on the repeat (and should be a single); the aforementioned singles; and “Excuse Me”, which features Jazmine doing her absolute best and most impassioned singing on this outing. For a sophomore album, she gets points for vocal panache but loses some with some slight missteps in material choices and sequencing. Definitely worth cherrypicking the tracks that you enjoy the most!

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