Don’t Quit Your Day Job

After achieving the success that the universe appears to have determined is owed all cast-members of In Living Color, Jamie Foxx has finally accomplished his original showbiz goal and recorded an R&B album. But in a stunning twist of events, the quality of Unpredictable is merely adequate.Foxx stays within the safe harbor created by R&B artists who have come before him. He has a beautiful, well-trained voice that could feasibly be listed under Webster’s definition of smooth. Unfortunately, he doesn’t stretch himself past his technical capabilities.

ame Keeping with the times, Foxx only spells you with “u” and also lines up famous friends to add some heft to his project. Kanye West, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Common, Twista, The Game and Ludacris all make appearances. It reads like the track listing of NOW 20, but Snoop’s track is the only one that sounds at all interesting. The rest of them blend into one long groove. If listeners aren’t careful they could lose a couple hours without even realizing it.

The biggest problem with Unpredictable is illustrated on “Three Letter Word.” Foxx croons, “I can’t get enough of/SEX/All the time/SEX/On my mind/SEX/Every where I go/SEX.” Mystery is what’s sexy. Foxx sheds all subtlety and loses the heat that past R&B giants like Al Green and Sam Cooke were able to create as if it was nothing.

From the first track Foxx fails to live up to the title he’s donned, making an album that’s actually pretty goddamn predictable. Or maybe that was his plan – to throw off our predictability meters by making such a quintessentially predictable album, yet titling it Unpredictable. Touché Jamie, touché.