J. Holiday is a contemporary Smokey Robinson from Bankhead. His debut album Back of My Lac’ is an album to play when you’re about to engage in roundhouse sex for an undetermined amount of time. J. Holiday as an artist??? Well, to put it simply he’s hood. I mean his tracks range from “Thug Commandments”, “Ghetto”, & “Pimp In Me”…It’s rather overt. The tracks are a blended smoothly and his hard thug persona doesn’t overshadow on his often sentimental and romantic lines.
By far the stand out track is “Bed” his smash single that had everybody in a tizzy—who is this guy? “Bed” was crafted by Dream [i.e. “Shawty Is The Shit”] and includes the similar—eh-eh-eh, you may remember from Rihanna’s Umbrella—overall this is an undeniably sensual song. Ok…what about the rest of the album. The rest of the album isn’t bad—it’s actually pretty damn good. “Laa Laa” is the classic romantic situation. Boy meets girl, boy offers girl some smoke, and well you know the rest. If you’re not into getting high and seek some soft R&B you’ll enjoy “Be With Me” & “Suffocate”—the latter being the best song on the album and the second single.
Towards the end of the album I discovered a slight departure from the overall sound of the record, it’s reminiscent of juke joint blues—“Fallen”. It’s one of those songs that’s a depressing story about falling into head first in love, then the painful inevitable conclusion.
I’m impressed but my socks aren’t knocked off. His sound isn’t my taste typically and this album didn’t do much to sway me. It kind of sounds like Trey Songs. It’s a pretty pedestrian album—it’s a good listen but walking down the street you’d hear something that sounds just like it. I didn’t purchase it, I probably won’t. That shouldn’t discourage you from doing so. Check it out for yourself.