In an era where the lane that supports R&B and the lane that supports hip hop have crossed into one lane of bumper to bumper traffic, it is always refreshing to get an album that safely cruises down one genre. Tremaine Neverson, more commonly known by his moniker Trey Songz, always has been one to stay safely within the R&B boundaries. Trey’s Trigga was an ode to drinking and loveless sexual conquests and also a major success at 14 million records sold.
While Trey Songz was still enjoying the latter half of his 20s during Trigga, he now has entered his 30s, which is a time where most people are caught in between the awkward stage of being too old to do fifteen shots of Ciroc in a night and wake up to a bed full of strangers and to young to settle down with five kids and a steady life insurance plan. This sentiment seems to be the major theme of Trey Songz new album, Tremaine.
Trey’s decision to use his government name as the name of his album falls in line with Young Thug’s mixtape Jeffrey, which also had a more mature vibe to it than his previous efforts. Trey and Tremaine have a battle throughout the album with the latter starting to yearn for real love, rather than the meaningless sexual encounters he has been accustomed to. His regretful nature comes through the hardest on the song “Playboy”. With lyrics like “Still fucking but I want to make love, I really want to know why I’m a playboy”, Trey seems to not understand why he is the way he is and although he wants to change his ways, he still can’t find his way out of “the game.”
However, with songs like “Animal”, it seems that he really doesn’t want to change and he is actually quite content with his savagery. The lyrics on “Animal” are pretty elementary with gems like “I’m a dog, I’m a dog, I’ma eat that pussy cat” failing to make any profound experiences on the album, but they do make for some catchy hits.
The best part of the album was the honesty that resided in it and the feelings that we all get when making that awkward transition from our wild 20s to our more demure 30s. The only difference is Trey has the added guise of fame, which makes it that more of a tumultuous experience.
Tremaine shows Trey’s growth mentally, but not quite musically, which is what I would like to see on his next effort.
Rating: 5.5/10
