While Valentine’s Day is over and done with, T-Pain’s latest single is the kind of timeless music that deserves to be played and shared all year. It might be just the song you need to make up with your boo thang after giving her that thoughtless gift you bought from the hustleman in an abandoned parking lot, or to make your side-chick feel like your main squeeze instead of second (or third) string. “Officially Yours” is not the booty shaking skrip club music we’re used to from the Rapper Turnt Singer. Instead, it's a hypnotic, throwback tune about settling down with that special someone.
Originally featured in his NPR Concert, “Officially Yours” finds Teddy Pain going raw with no Auto-Tune over an old school, bluesy, barbershop quartet-inspired track. Stripped of his usual robotic accoutrements, Pain’s voice flourishes against a cacophony of hi-hats, tickled ivories, doo wop background vocals, deep bass guitar notes and a little beat boxing for good measure. He succeeds in mimicking the throwback works of singers such as Sam Cooke. In fact, it would have been interesting to hear Mr. Theodore Pain attempt to do a project similar to The-Dream’s IAMSAM surprise EP from last year. You know, as if those two need any further comparisons to each other.
“Officially Yours” is the first song from T-Pain’s upcoming unnamed project. Whether that’s an album, EP or something completely different given today’s musical climate, we can’t be sure. However, what we can say is that T-Pain sans Auto-Tune is no longer a novelty. It's a real thing and we kind of want more. Not only is his voice coming of age in a sense but the production is as well. We're looking forward to the hood maestro showing his range and depth in the coming months.
