Baby Makin' Project fails to reproduce

By: Jackie Cole

Posted: 11/29/07

11/29/07 - When I heard that the mid-90's R&B group Jagged Edge had a new CD out, one thing came to my mind: Middle school dances.

Ah, the good old days of adorning myself in bright purple shimmer eye-shadow and a skin-tight spaghetti-strap tank top ... Dancing like a white girl in a small circle with all my fellow eighth-grade girlfriends.

When Nelly came on, we would do our best impression of the scantily-clad dancers we saw on his music video, hoping we looked just as hot.

And when Jagged Edge came on, every girl scanned the "dance floor" (aka the gymnasium), searching for her latest gelled, spikey-haired crush, praying that he would ask her to dance. If you got lucky, you got to spend an entire two and a half minutes in an awkward heaven, slow dancing with your Abercrombie-clad love.

The thing is, I thought the boys of Jagged Edge, who created those sweet, fantasy, slow-dance songs of middle school, had disappeared off the face of the earth since my girlfriends and I ditched our purple eye shadow for black eyeliner in freshman year of high school. Apparently, the members of Jagged Edge; Kyle, Brian, Brandon and Wingo, thought differently.

"There are no other R&B groups in the game right now!" says Kyle. Maybe the rest of the world wasn't preparing for a new Jagged Edge album, but, according to the guys of the band, there wasn't any better time than the present for them to release a whole new collection of crooning, soft love ballads.

Let me just say, before I mention anything else about Jagged Edge, that the title of its new album, Baby Makin' Project, induced an overwhelming amount of deep, hearty laughter. Are the guys themselves conducting a project in which they attempt to impregnate as many unsuspecting women as possible?

Or, as a "Rolling Stone" review suggests, perhaps the guys of the band believe that their music is so seductive and romantic that they are inspiring couples everywhere to engage in the baby-makin' act. Either way, it's a hysterical title.

As for the 11 "soulful" songs on Baby Makin' Project, they simply fail to "put me in the mood."

Maybe I have a different idea of what a "romantic" song is, or maybe Jagged Edge's time of love-making ballads has passed, along with eighth grade dances.

Supposedly, the second track on the album, "Put A Little Umph In It," featuring Ashanti, should inspire some candle-lit dancing, or uh, candle-lit other things. But it makes me want to take a candle-lit nap. It's slow and soft, which I guess is how a love song should be, but it has zero beat and definitely fails to catch my attention.

The remaining nine tracks on the album (not including the Intro) have the same sleepy beat, the same soft crooning.

I have to give the guys credit though - despite their ability to create a catchy beat, they all have damn good voices. Their harmonizing and deep, melodic voices make me want to jump onstage with them and snap my fingers to the beat (what little of it there is).

Perhaps with a little work on the instrumental side of their music, Jagged Edge can create a modern age baby boom, inspired completely by its music.