The title of
Ne-Yo's eighth LP is misleading in a sense. While there's no mistaking
Self Explanatory for the work of anyone else, one wouldn't know without following news reports or the singer's concurrent interviews that it's a pandemic album of sorts. There are no references or even allusions to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was under lockdown in 2020 that
Ne-Yo's home became a pressure cooker. He and his wife split, considered divorce, and eventually reconciled, remarrying three months before the 2022 release of
Self Explanatory. Coming off his least successful album,
Good Man,
Ne-Yo opted to no longer concern himself with where he fits within the context of commercial R&B, and used his personal circumstances as a source of lyrical inspiration. The sadder songs are most obviously written from immediate first-hand experience. In "Handle Me Gently," rhythmically a plush new jack swing throwback,
Ne-Yo admits his faults and desire to make things right. "Don't Love Me" follows it with subtle trap-styled flourishes, but at its core, it's an aching and repentant weeper (with some fine falsetto) that only the artist behind "So Sick" and "Fade into the Background" could have written. Despite the sonic contrast between those unequivocally R&B ballads, they could easily be country songs with different production choices. A fair portion of the album alternates between uncertainty, affirmation, and wistful reminiscence. The last of those feelings is most intense on the post-breakup "What If," the only song that hits the dancefloor, but not until after an intro where
Ne-Yo delivers one of his highly specific couplets: "Fast forward two years and we were over/Ubered to the airport when I know I shoulda drove you." In a couple other songs -- the spare, winding "After Party" and gently knocking "Call Me Up" --
Ne-Yo flips the script to write from the perspective of a potential homewrecker. There's a surplus of swagger in those tracks, and in the somewhat displaced slow jam "You Got the Body." The likely unintended alternate meaning of "I got the bag, you got the body" make it ripe for a slasher film. A major soundtrack placement wouldn't prevent this from being considered
Ne-Yo's most biographical album yet. ~ Andy Kellman
