Majid Jordan is one of several new groups that rapper Drake has taken under his wing over the past few years. Drake signed Majid Jordan to his recording label, OVO Sound, in 2014 after the Canadian-based group co-produced and was featured on his most successful single, “Hold On, We’re Going Home.” The duo, composed of Majid Al Maskati and Jordan Ullman, met while attending the University of Toronto and have since gone on to release an EP and an album.
Their newly released, self-titled album is a mixed bag of musical offerings. From the first song, “Learn From Each Other,” the duo back their silky vocals with a driving bass line and ambient R&B accents. The synthesizer in the intro to this song even provides a bit of Middle Eastern flare, which is appropriate considering that Majid was raised in Bahrain near Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The group’s style is reminiscent to The Weeknd’s and that of Drake’s quieter songs. Musically, the tracks combine ambient, moody R&B and pop with plenty of bass to get the point across. Unfortunately, the majority of the tracks here are uninteresting both musically and lyrically apart from a few of the album’s highlights, which include the singles “My Love,” featuring Drake, and “Something About You,” which I still like despite hearing it played on the radio too often.
Majid Jordan especially suffers in the lyrical department. While the group’s obvious inspirations, like The Weeknd and Drake, spice up their lyrics either with profanity, descriptions of sexuality, or interesting word play, Majid Jordan plays it incredibly safe, offering little more than generic mumblings on relationships that come across as whiny teenage angst.
While this first album from Majid Jordan really didn’t impress me much, it’s not completely worth disregarding. Despite its shortcomings, the album is still nicely cohesive and the beats on most of the tracks are interesting enough; however, Majid Jordan would do themselves a favor to take risks in the near future before they are dismissed like many of the enthusiastic newcomers trying to break into the already overcrowded R&B scene.
