Amerie - Because I Love It Vol 1

This doesn’t happen very often, an RnB singer [female at that] releasing a mixtape. Amerie is starting down that track with Because I Love It Vol 1 & 2, which will act as precursors to her 2007 solo LP, Because I Love It.

This doesn’t happen very often, an RnB singer [female at that] releasing a mixtape. Amerie is starting down that track with Because I Love It Vol 1 & 2, which will act as precursors to her 2007 solo LP, Because I Love It [No longer called None Of The Above].
It may have been a good idea to change the titles up, now we’ll have 3 releases with pretty much the same name, but I digress.

This mixtape follows the path you’re familiar with; the vocalist doing their thing over popular intrumentals. It works quite well here with Amerie doing some pretty pro-studio vocals, as opposed to throwaway melodies and adlibs.

She begins with Get You Some, where she takes a rapper-like approach singing about label politics and coming back off of the success of Touch. Before we hit Rick Ross’ Push It instrumental Amerie takes a second to talk about how hard it was to succeed in the biz.

Her highlight, vocally, is the next track over Pharrell’s Number One beat. This one is straight Amerie that leads well into an LP track featuring Cee-Lo, Take Control.

It’s about this point I know dude’s should eat this up. Her choice of instrumentals is pretty on point. More Rick Ross the boss, Amerie vocals over Blow is wicked. “One day I’m gonna blow!” isn’t as bad as it sounds.

Next is a great flip of Lil Scrappy’s Money in the Bank where Amerie takes the ‘chick’ approach to money complaining about guys not being able to deal with her making bread. After which she talks again about how money changes things - she doesn’t say much more.

Now, I really don’t enjoy listening to Luda’s Shake Your Money Maker. Don’t really know what it is, probably the chorus; which Amerie doesn’t really change on her version.

The rest of the tape sort of falls off a little. It becomes more what I was expecting, ballad-y sort of tracks with stock vocals. She does put on the LP cut, That’s What You Are.

Then the Outro is more talking, where Amerie explains that the upcoming album is more of a project than an album. She also confirms that another mixtape, Vol 2, will come out next year before the LP drops in spring.

I think this is a really great idea for a talent like Amerie. It could definitely have done without the explanations in between tracks, there are 4 in all. I’m keen to check out the followup and to see who else follows her lead on mixtape promotions.