The Cleveland-born and D.C.-based musician Aaron Abernathy is best known for his work as a session musician and the leader of Black Milk’s live band Nat Turner, the band that played behind Milk's recent jazz-rap album The Rebellion Sessions. Now standing center stage, Abernathy goes solo on his new LP aptly titled Monologue, which blends the weathered tropes of soul with his own formative life experiences. It’s a big, autobiographical conversation that also allows listeners to identify themselves in Ab’s life story.
The album tells the true tale of Abernathy’s teenage summer love affair just before to his freshman year at Howard University. As with many first loves, it consumes everything in Ab’s life, which leads to the album’s most significant theme of isolation. Ab notes at the start of the album that he’s the “Son of Larry” and that his mother is his “Favorite Girl,” but, like many post-high school kids, he’s conflicted between his parents and his friends who he may never see again. Furthermore, he’s confronted with choosing between his old friends, his new girlfriend, and his piano lessons. As he sequesters himself over 11 tracks, he discovers another weathered soul trope: love, music, and expressing his appreciation of both in song creates the greatest strength and most significant creative power.
The album’s DNA is largely comprised of three iconic moments in soul music. Just take the soaring guitar solo on Prince’s Sign ‘O’ the Times* *slow-jam “Adore,” the organic acoustic soul of early *’*70s singer-songwriters like Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack, and André 3000’s most earnest and lovelorn moments on his half Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, and the table is set. The lead single “I See You” handles the Prince component with an interplay between Abernathy’s own squawking falsetto, the chopped synths, and soaring lead guitar moments that rise from the mix. Abernathy himself notes that this song is supposed to create a sense of “crushing on someone.” However, there’s so much honest sensuality here that the song gently cascades over the edge into something much more erotic in nature.
Phonte and Abernathy’s frequent collaborator Black Milk appear on “Bachelorette,” which alongside “I See You” perfectly articulate the quasi-romantic victory of wooing a girl into your father’s car to drive her home from the mall. That it takes roughly nine minutes and 30 seconds is maybe a bit problematic. On The Love Below, André 3000 does what Abernathy attempts in roughly half the time with “Spread,” and the “Where Are My Panties?” skit, which unlike Abernathy’s album, adds some humor to balance the serious sexuality. Abernathy mimicking Andre’s ability to know exactly at which heartstring to aim his stylings is impressive, but he hasn’t quite figured out the right tone or pacing.
The moment that best encapsulates the album’s emotional core lay within the acoustic guitars and thick organic drum breaks that drive “I Need to Know.” Abernathy lays his soul bare and the lyrics’ spiritual essence animate in your mind’s eye. There’s no synths, no Prince-fetishization, and no early 2000s neo-soul to be found. Rather, there’s just Ab delivering what teenage life at the confluence of heartbreak, depression, and a slight fear of the unknown feels like.
On an album that oftentimes veers into overwrought sentimentality for the purposes of hammering home Abernathy’s desire to spiritually connect with the listener, “I Need to Know’” is brilliantly simple in composition. It leaves enough space for the listener to feel Abernathy’s questioning delivery of lyrics like, “Am I running a race that I can’t win?” Of late, from Miguel to Bryson Tiller, there have been many soul albums released that inspire love-making. In veering towards sex but staying well-rooted in the ultra-emotional moments of discovering love (or heartbreak, we never quite find out), Aaron Abernathy has grounded himself in a lane that feels familiar but still carries you to new places.
