The 808 cowbells on “Boo’d Up” were a red herring. Across several EPs and two albums, Ella Mai has proven herself to be more than a throwback act. While the British singer’s longing vocals and smooth hooks take obvious cues from ’90s and 2000s’ R&B, her bouncy and moody SoCal sound aligns her with the present. She’s both hopelessly prone to falling head over heels and quick to put “these heartless, broken boys” in their place if they toy with her feelings. With her third album, she’s finally found her boo—and her stride. Do You Still Love Me? is a set of polished midtempo grooves that threads snap&b, soul, and rap, and boasts her strongest songwriting yet. “No broken-hearted people here,” she declares on the intro, fortified by love.
Records about settling down tend to bask in the thrills of leaving dating behind and getting the chance to forge a new life. Do You Still Love Me? follows that tradition in its first half. Single “100,” built atop lush strings, whining chipmunk vocals, and crisp snaps, is rhapsodic, Mai extolling her relationship’s flexible dynamic. “20 for my 80/Ain’t no maybe/We’ll make it to 100/If I got 40 for your 60/You’ll stick with me,” she sings, stretching each number like it’s a last dollar.
Ballad “Somebody’s Son” swoons even harder. “Even when he wrong, wanna apologize/I don’t really care who’s right,” Mai belts over a bed of feathery synths and ghostly background vocals. That same sentiment carries “Little Things,” an innocent successor to Destiny’s Child to “Cater 2 U.” But where Destiny’s Child depicted small acts of service as intimate foreplay, Mai drops the come-ons and finds pleasure in the favors themselves. Her love songs have always had a strong current of devotion, but her conviction here is ironclad, her voice clarion rather than yearning.
As the question mark in the album title suggests, though, angst and doubt lurk beneath the bliss. Around the halfway point, Mai’s domesticity grows feral. “Luckiest Man” inverts the devotion of “Somebody’s Son,” and Mai reminds her suitor that she also deserves to be obsessed over. Alternating between a purr and a cocksure croon, she sounds as hostile as she does confident. She pushes that sentiment further on highlight “Might Just,” a track about confronting a partner after dreaming he was unfaithful. The conceit is ridiculous, but she plays it exquisitely straight. Insisting the dream was too vivid to have been fake, she hisses threats and accusations, at one point dropping her voice to a menacing whisper like the late Drakeo.
Mai’s label boss Mustard, who has credits on every track, supplies some of his most subtle beats here. Forgoing his characteristic bass kicks, shouts, and dark synths—as well as his signature drop–he emphasizes atmosphere over rhythm. Soft key and guitar melodies, airy vocal loops, and light percussion abound, making the album feel weightless (“Outside”) and occasionally haunted (“Luckiest Man”). The only recognizable Mustard tic is the ubiquitous finger snaps, which mostly add sway. The flickering production could be more dynamic on the back half as Mai retracts her claws and resumes gushing, but on the whole it complements her wavering resolve. The record is as anxious as it is lovesick.
Mai’s songwriting could still use some touching up. Lyrics like “You continue to blow my mind” and “We’ve been through hell and out” fail to match the passion of her singing or convey the intimacy of the experiences she’s describing. The smoldering “Bonus” is one of the biggest letdowns, with a stuttering hook—“B-b-bonus/B-b-bonus”—that stunts an otherwise engaging performance. But Do You Still Love Me? soars more often than it sinks, and Mai continues to find fresh entryways into old sounds and subjects. She’s not R&B’s vanguard, but her blues and her fervor, her stories and her style, are always her own.
