MUSIC REVIEWS
LeToya - LeToya
David Allun Jones
So even with Beyonce and Co. kicking her to the curb, original Destiny’s Child member LeToya Luckett refuses to sit back and let her former bandmates leave her in the dust. Six years after getting served her walking papers, LeToya re-emerges with a solo debut that, if nothing else, appears intent on keeping the DC sound alive.
Strip away her former group’s obvious pop ambitions (“Bootylicious”) and corny strains of positivism (“Survivor”) and you’re left with their Southern hip hop-stylized gutter bangers and daytime TV-derived R&B mid-tempos, exactly where LeToya falls on her own. Sporting a decent vocal that was questionably relegated to background duties before, the young Texan conveniently hypes up her Houston connections (cameos from Paul Wall, Mike Jones, Slim Thug and Jazze Pha keep the candy paint/ iced grills banter high) when she’s not feening after thugs, hitting the clubs or racking her brain whether she should dump her man or keep him.
With a bevy of strong songwriting/ production talent laying the groundwork, LeToya never hits a dry spot. Just when you tire of the emotional distress from the opening series of relationship woes, she unleashes a chunk of club joints mid-album that effectively deliver on their promise. The downside to having an album full of potential hit singles, especially coming from the contemporary R&B scene, is that nothing feels all that distinctive or original. This could be a solid release from any young female singer for radio to milk off of and if LeToya wanted to stand out from the pack, being the 1,332nd artist to utilize the pendulum-swaying melody of The Stylistics’ “You Are Everything” isn’t the best way to garner much acclaim.
If anything, LeToya’s eponymous debut is a satisfying set with minimal, if any, filler and while there’s not much here to guarantee that anyone will “say her name” by this time next year, it does prove that there can be life after Destiny.
