Brian McKnight

On his ninth full-length, Brian McKnight does what he does best, lacing mellow bedroom-ready beats with romantic cooing and ultra-smooth serenades. Laid-back but impressive all around, Gemini features the single "Every Time You Go Away" and a great collaboration with Brooklyn emcee Talib Kweli ("Everything I Do").

Since hooking up with puff Daddy and Trackmasterz on 1997's Anytime, R&B smoothie Brian
McKnight has stuck to the same pattern: He writes, produces and plays on an LP's length of
slow jams but also enlists hip-hop producers to spice up each CD with club-friendly
potential singles. Little has changed on his eighth album. The Buffalo-born singer gets points
for using real drums, bass and guitar on cozy, nostalgic tracks such as the ballad "... More >