This article is about the NxWorries album Yes Lawd!. For the hymnal, see Yes, Lord!.
Yes Lawd!
studio
ArtistNxWorries
CoverFile:Nxworries yeslawd cover.jpg
ReleasedOctober 21, 2016
GenreR&B · hip-hop · funk · neo soul
LabelStones Throw
ProducerKnxwledge
Prev year2015
Next year2017

Yes Lawd! is the debut studio album by American neo soul[1] duo NxWorries, which consists of vocalist Anderson .Paak and producer Knxwledge. It was released on October 21, 2016, by Stones Throw Records.[2] It is supported by four singles, "Suede", "Link Up", "Lyk Dis", and "Get Bigger / Do U Luv".

Release and promotion

On June 19, 2016, member Anderson .Paak confirmed that NxWorries' debut studio album is finished and set for release.[3] On July 25, 2016, Paak's manager, Adrian Miller, confirmed that the album was to be titled Yes Lawd!.[4] On September 19, 2016, the third single to NxWorries' debut studio album "Lyk Dis" was released, along with the track listing and release date for the album.[5] On October 14, 2016, the duo released the album a week early for streaming on Apple Music.[6]

Critical reception

Yes Lawd! received generally favorable reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, it received an average score of 80, based on 22 reviews.[7] NME magazine's Jordan Bassett hailed it as "a sprawling, languid affair, running to 19 tracks of soulful hip-hop",[8] while Jim Carroll of The Irish Times called it "an all-beats-blazing set of the funk".[9] It was deemed an "R&B lover and millennial must-have" by Vibe,[10] and Rolling Stone named it the 15th best R&B album of 2016.[1] Robert Christgau gave the album a three-star honorable mention in his column for Vice, indicating "an enjoyable effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well treasure".[11] He cited "Another Time", "Lyk Dis", and "Fkku" as highlights while calling Anderson .Paak a "love man [who] projects [a] minimum modicum of empathy with his salable burr yet somehow sounds cuddly even so".[12] Marshall Gu from PopMatters was less enthusiastic, writing that the album "wants to be a neo-soul version of Madvillain or The Unseen or Donuts, that is, a stoner's dream collection of fragments of songs, less focused on hooks and more focused on sounds".[13]

Track listing

Credits adapted from BMI.[14]

All tracks produced by Knxwledge.

Sample credits
  • "Livvin" contains samples of "Tributo Ao Sorriso", written by Alen Terra, Yan Guest, Jorge Amiden, and Luiz Junior, and performed by Karma.
  • "Wngs" contains samples of "Ghetto Money", written by Linda Creed and Thom Bell, and performed by Ahmad Jamal.
  • "Best One" contains samples of "Lord You're My Everything", written by Thomas Whitfield and performed by the Thomas Whitfield Company; and samples of the film The Players Club.
  • "What More Can I Say" contains samples of "What More Can I Say", written by Bradley Bobo, Clifford Curry, Santos Domínguez, and Terry Long, and performed by The Notations; samples of "Good to Get Away", written and performed by Brenda Nicholas and Philip Nicholas; and samples of "Nights Like This", written by Jesse Johnson and Keith Lewis, and performed by After 7.
  • "Kutless" contains samples of "Lady", written and performed by Gino Vannelli.
  • "Lyk Dis" contains samples of "Mr. Me, Mrs. You", written by H. B. Barnum and Robert Young, and performed by Creme d'Cocoa; and contains samples of "Ebony Woman", written by Morris Bailey and performed by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes.
  • "Can't Stop" contains samples of "I Think My Heart Is Telling", written by John H. Fitch Jr. and Reuben Cross, and performed by Evelyn "Champagne" King; and samples of the television series Rick and Morty.
  • "Get Bigger / Do U Luv" contains samples of "The Love You Gave to Me", written by Greg Adams and Webster Lewis, and performed by Webster Lewis; samples of "In Summertime", written and performed by Ronnie McNeir; and samples of "Pussy", written by Shawn Carter, Robert Kelly, and Devin Copeland, and performed by Jay Z and R. Kelly featuring Devin the Dude.
  • "H.A.N." samples the film The Players Club.
  • "Scared Money" contains samples of "(I Could Never Say) It's Over", written by Johnny Kemp and Mauro Malavasi and performed by B. B. & Q. Band; and interpolations of "Midnight", written by Ali Muhammad, Jonathan Davis, and Malik Taylor, and performed by A Tribe Called Quest featuring Raphael Wiggins.
  • "Suede" contains samples of "The Bottle", written by Gil Scott-Heron and performed by Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson.
  • "Starlite" contains samples of "God Is So Good to Me", written by Clyde G. Carter and performed by Gwen Carter.
  • "Jodi" contains samples of the "Funky Bottoms" titled episode from the Kung Faux television series.
  • "Sidepiece" contains an interpolation of "Won't Do", written and performed by J Dilla.
  • "Another Time" contains samples of "Bless You With My Love", written by Barbara J. Trotter and performed by Heaven Sent & Ecstasy; and samples of "Your Love", written by Kenni Ski, Allen Anthony, and Shawn Carter, and performed by Christión and Jay Z.
  • "Fkku" contains samples of "Absolutely Beautiful", written and performed by Eddie Robinson; and samples of the video "Dear person that pissed me off..." by Krissychula.

Charts

Chart (2016)Peak
position
New Zealand Heatseekers Albums (RMNZ)[15]1

References

  1. ^ Reed, Ryan (February 15, 2017). "Watch Anderson Paak's Dramatic Valentine's Day 'Tonight Show' Performance". Rolling Stone. Retrieved April 7, 2017.
  2. ^ "Yes Lawd! by NxWorries, Anderson .Paak & Knxwledge on Apple Music". iTunes. Archived from the original on October 8, 2016. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
  3. ^ "Anderson .Paak Says 'NxWorries' Album Is Finished - XXL". Xxlmag.com. Retrieved July 27, 2016.
  4. ^ Hermann, Andy. "Anderson .Paak's Long, Hard Road to Fame Was Worth the Wait". Los Angeles Weekly. Retrieved July 27, 2016.
  5. ^ "NxWorries – Anderson.Paak and Knxwledge – YES LAWD! | Stones Throw Records"
  6. ^ "Listen to NxWorries' (Anderson .Paak and Knxwledge) New Album Yes Lawd! A Week Early". Pitchfork. 14 October 2016.
  7. ^ "Reviews for Yes Lawd! by NxWorries". Metacritic. Retrieved August 7, 2016.
  8. ^ Bassett, Jordan (October 20, 2016). "NxWorries – 'Yes Lawd!' Album Review". NME. Archived October 23, 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved December 3, 2019.
  9. ^ Carroll, Jim (October 20, 2016). "NxWorries – Yes Lawd! album review: Anderson .Paak comes out all beats blazing". The Irish Times. Retrieved April 7, 2017.
  10. ^ Anon. (December 16, 2016). "13. NxWorries, 'Yes Lawd!'". Vibe. Retrieved April 7, 2017.
  11. ^ Christgau 2017; Christgau 2000, p. xvi.
  12. ^ Christgau 2017.
  13. ^ Gu, Marshall (October 27, 2016). "NxWorries: Yes Lawd!". PopMatters. Retrieved April 7, 2017.
  14. ^ "BMI | Repertoire Search". repertoire.bmi.com. Retrieved 2019-08-07.
  15. ^ "NZ Heatseekers Albums Chart". Recorded Music NZ. October 31, 2016. Retrieved October 28, 2016.

Bibliography