age/sex/location by Ari Lennox Album Review
Who is Ari Lennox? She is a luminary raw R&B singer with unique powerful vocals and the very first female artist to be signed by J. Cole’s label Dreamville Records. Her second album age/sex/locations is a deep dive into accounting for her intimate relationships. It’s a riveting album that addresses the spectrum of emotions within a relationship(s). Lyrically: raw, instrumentally: funky, and vocally: strong and superior. This album proves Ari Lennox is a leading artist in the R&B genre in this generation.
The album starts off strong with POF which contains vulnerable lyrics and Ari’s personal account of her situation with relationships and her current situation of independence. She sings:
“Destined for greatness” is always what my mama said
Young black woman approachin thirty with no lover in my bed
Cannot settle I got standards
Already Ari starts off with this energy that’s very raw yet confident. She is honest with herself and her listeners and that intention carries on through the rest of the album.
Another example of Ari’s honesty is within how she displays her personal accounts of her relationships and her desires. We can see this in Hoodie and Waste My Time. In Hoodie Ari sings:
“Can I be in that hoodie?
I’m trying play in that hoodie”
In Waste My Time Ari Sings
“Won’t you come do something fun to me?
’Cause I’m tryna F you
Waste my time, get on my line
‘Cause I got the time to waste”
We see this vulnerable side of Ari who is in this state of desire and her need to feel desired. This continues into the next track her lead and popular single Pressure. A sultry confident vocally superior single.
One of the most riveting and exciting tracks on this album is Boy Bye (feat. Lucky Daye). Boy Bye is back and the fourth dialogue between Ari and Lucky. It’s fun and intimate. Both Ari’s and Lucky’s vocals are strong and smooth. Lyrically its superior and witty.
The album continues with this sultry and sexy energy with strong songs like Stop by, Outside, and Leak it (feat. Chlöe).
When you listen to the album in its entirety it is truly displaying Ari’s personal journey and almost has its own parts and identities. For example, in the first half, Ari shares her relationship troubles, then transitions into desiring and addressing her sensuality, and then concludes with this confident boundary-setting mindset.
This album is really a diamond in the mind field for the R&B genre right now. Ari’s energy is just a beautiful powerful entity in itself and it has created this magnificent piece of art. The features in themselves shows these powerhouses in the R&B genre from Chlöe, to Summer Walker, to Lucky Daye, again we see how much of a force Ari Lennox is.
This is simply put a perfect album.
