Album Review: Latice Crawford – ‘Latice Crawford’

Artist: Latice Crawford
Album: Latice Crawford
Street Date: 1/28/14
Record Label: RCA Inspiration
Genre: Gospel
iPod Pick: There
BET’s Sunday Best has been known to produce diva gems such as Crystal Aikin, Jessica Reedy, Y’Anna Crawley and Shari Addison. Meet the currently bald, bold and beautiful Latice Crawford, an alum and finalist on the second season of Sunday Best and 5 years later has offered us her debut. Does it settle the anticipation of the wait? Let’s see.
‘On You Should Know By Now’, Latice’s voice shines with audacity presenting touchy faith topics in a conversational but still direct way. In fact, she chimes in unexpectedly a moment in the song at the listener with “if you don’t know now you should be ashamed” referring to who God really is. The song carries a ‘no-nonsense listen-up’ aura. Also for example, on one of the verses she croons ‘come on people why are we surprise with all the nonsense? They took prayer out of our schools, now we pay the consequence’. Musically the song is retro with lots of horns and has the 1980’s Motown big-lady backup vocals feel (think Beyoncé’s ‘Work It Out’, yeah the one for the Austin Powers film).
Funny enough the next song on the album which happens to be the debut single from the album deviates from the Motown feel on the first to sunshine pop, and I love it! I love it in that the guitar bangs bring out the beauty of Latice’s voice. Latice’s voice texture is one of the unique points of her music. It’s reminiscent of all we loved of artistes like Ayeisha Woods, Mary J Blige,Keisha Cole, Brandy, Toni Braxton and more. You know that smooth contra-alto voice feel, yeah.
‘Through it All’ carries a noteworthy message of God being there always for us even in the storm. ‘Better’ follows almost in the sunshine pop vein with adlibs reminiscent of veterans such as Angelique Kidjo and Shirley Caesar. It’s encouraging, upbeat and so radio ready. I love how the encouragement is real and balanced on this song as Latice reminds the listener ‘You gon always have to fight’.
From the first track after resting in with a voice like Latice’s, I couldn’t wait for the ballad on the album. And ‘Back to You’ though sounds a bit like something we’ve heard musically is beautiful and would be memorable for the listener in that it isn’t clichéd at all. ‘Hear Me’ starts off like something Susan Boyle or Bjork, the singer from Iceland popularly known for her swan dress would want on their record if re-mastered a bit. The eerie piano beats at the beginning would draw you in. Sadly, it morphs into the ‘regular’ gospel sound as it draws to end.
‘Break Loose’ takes us right to church with a retro feel. Come on shake it up! ‘Oh Yes He is’ still keeps us in church but with lightly harmonized BGVs reminiscent of a jazz club. On ‘I’d Feel Alive’, Latice enters in with the ‘Tell-me-a-story’ styled vocal. If you’ve heard ‘Ave Maria’ by Beyoncé or some of her hymnish ballads you would know what I mean. It’s a song of hope, heaven and all that’s behind the scenes on just strings and voice and it works well. ‘Joshua’s Anthem’ the album closer is a beautifully crafted chant. And how I love chants and anthems. There’s always something powerful and communal about them. Think R. Kelly’s World’s Greatest or Angelique Kidjo’s ‘We Are One’.
I think Latice Crawford’s self-titled is solid for a debut. Latice has a voice of her own and that is rare in the Christian music community. She has issues and topics she’s passionate about and you would hear her peculiar heart on this record. Even form the album art, you can tell this lady is bold and not giving in. She will be around a long time.