Fantasia is trying to come back and in a major way. Her new album Side Effects Of You comes out in a few weeks (April 23rd), and while “Lose To Win” was inspirational and all that, it fell flat to many of her fans.

So she’s gone the way of trendy and has put out “Without You”, which embraces the minimalistic nature of hip-hop’s current scene of trap-rap, mixed with some swirling chords a la a synth or Wurlitzer, to bring some melody into the tuneless nature of the beat. The song features a guest vocal by Kelly Rowland, who actually really sounds very decent.

In fact, I’m going to go ahead and say that Fantasia has “dumbed” down her vocals for two reasons: because the beat calls for it — it’s a current sounding track on par with what radio is playing these days. The second, being that Kelly Rowland is also singing on the track. Fantasia’s trademark gut-busting, countrified soulful vocal would NOT mesh with a track like this, and, well, we know Kelly isn’t that type of singer.

Missy Elliott’s verse really adds no value outside of the fact that she’s probably the cheapest of female rappers to get a feature from right now, and of course, the most immediate choices for a rap on this joint are really overused (Tyga, Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, etc.). Overall, it’s nice club track. It’ll knock after a few drinks and if you’re standing by a subwoofer. But ultimately, after a few replays it falls flat fast and leaves me wanting more from the vocal powerhouse that is Fantasia. It was nice to hear something in which she holds herself back, however. It definitely makes her more accessible outside of R&B radio. “Without Me” fits real well in a mix right next to “I’m Different”….

Thoughts?

Share This!