Make It Hot

08/25/1998 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Billy Johnson Jr

Make It Hot delivers one of the year's hottest new styles. Whether it's 17-year-old Nicole Wray's, syrupy, relaxed harmonizing or Missy Elliott and Timbaland's space-age sound effects over stuttering 808 beats, the aforementioned title track, "Seventeen" and "Boy You Should Listen" will win many battle-of-the-beats contests. "Boy You Should Listen"'s insistence that sex should not be rushed is refreshing.

Unfortunately, there's not enough of this more original style on the album. "Seventeen" borrows a portion of Skyy chorus from "Call Me." The incredible jerking synthesizers, distinctive pianos and aggressive moving "I Can't See" screams SWV. And the album's only ballads, "Eyes Better Not Wander," "Silly Love Song" and "Borrowed Time," incorporate Erykah Badu-styled production and Faith Evans croons respectively.

Still, Make It Hot is an enjoyable ride. Nicole offers plenty sass (she actually kicks decent raps on a few songs). She has a beautiful voice. She's down with Missy Elliott. And hell, she's only 17. Give her some time, she'll eventually develop a signature sound that will transcend, dance, mid-tempo and ballads.