Jacqueline Mapei Cummings writes and records polyglot pop-soul that feels deeply inspired by her international upbringing and well-traveled adulthood: she was born in Rhode Island to a Liberian mother and an American father, moved to Sweden with the former at age 10, and has bounced between Portugal, Brazil, and Tunisia in the decades since. Her 2009 debut EP The Cocoa Butter Diaries was made up of gritty, socially conscious rap that garnered comparisons to the work of Lauryn Hill; a collaborative record with French electro knuckleheads Justice was scrapped shortly after. When she returned nearly five years later with single “Don’t Wait”, she sounded completely different, her hard-edged progressivism replaced by cracking analog warmth, extensive vocal processing, and rich, earthy tones. “Don’t Wait” made a decent-sized splash, and the song leads off her debut LP, Hey Hey, a record that represents an ostensible attempt to build on the song’s success.
“Don’t Wait” remains a supremely catchy, texturally compelling piece of music, but it also manages to encapsulates most of Mapei’s strengths and weaknesses in one four minute blast. There’s her voice, a warm and engaging instrument that sounds almost exactly like Alicia Keys; there’s her ear for space, which allows small details like backing percussive snaps and secondary piano melodies to pop instead of being swallowed. And, troublingly, there’s her tendency to lean on clunky, lazy phrasing and lyrical motifs: a line like “Let’s laugh and cry/ Until we die” combines dullness and awkward rhyming, almost grinding the song to a halt even as its positive aspects are present and in motion. Largely, Hey Hey continues on in this way—showcasing a pleasant voice with some interesting musical ideas, stunted by a reliance on platitudes, staid imagery, and tired themes that make it tough to get through the entire album.
There are certainly some lovely moments on Hey Hey, several of which stem from the juxtaposition of classic melodies—and Mapei’s traditionally soulful voice—with contemporary production flourishes. “As 1” is built around an inviting and familiar piano melody that’s augmented with a wide array of synth tones and bubbling rhythms; in some moments, it doesn’t sound far from the joyous and oft-zany electronic music made by Mapei’s Scandinavian neighbours in Norway. Mapei and producer Magnus Lidehäll balance their love of modern synth-pop and their classicist impulses, and position her at the front of the mix whether she’s singing or dipping into her still-dexterous rapping voice.
But her prominent placement at the forefront of these songs only illuminates her weak lyrical spots. “Change”, a perfectly serviceable piece of inspirational pap, is rendered completely benign where it might’ve held some personal resonance or deeper meaning; “Things You Know Nothing About”, ostensibly a stern rebuttal of a block-headed lover, is devoid of detail and stuffed with unconnected, boilerplate cliches like “I believe I was made to love," even as it compellingly moves from zippy, synth-flecked pulses to a funky strut. “Step Up” might be the album’s worst offender, hanging on the slack-jawed repetition of “When you gon’ step up?” and containing the immortally lousy rhyme, “You ain’t an MC, you ain’t no singer/ You and your company could get the finger.”
The sentiment is admirable — it’s seemingly pulled from Mapei’s own experience in the industry, and feedback she might’ve received from executives who thought her somewhere between an MC and a vocalist and unable to succeed at either — but ironically, she doesn’t yet possess the skillset to make the line truly effective. To her credit, Mapei has recognized weakness in her lyricism, going so far as to discuss it in her interviews; in a June chat with Fader, she noted, “I have a hard time expressing myself in English since I think in Swedish. Swedish has become my first language, so I don’t like talking to Americans that much … maybe I am going through some premature phase but I feel really down.” It’s the kind of honest self-evaluation that’ll serve her well as her career evolves; unfortunately, it’s a piece of self-criticism that consistently holds up when applied to Hey Hey.
