Description
Personnel includes: Dawn (vocals); Frankie Ramano (guitar); Que (background vocals).
Producers include: Ivan Barias, Carvin Haggins, Christopher Warrior, Kowan Paul, Kenni Ski.
Audio Mixers: Neil Pogue; Andy Blakelock; All-Star; Chris "The Glove" Taylor.
Audio Remixer: Budda.
Recording information: A Touch Of Jazz Studios, Philadelphia, PA; Head Up Studio, NJ; Larabee North; Leftside Entertainment; Silvercrest Entertainment; Westlake Studios, CA.
Arranger: Travon Potts.
Dawn Robinson's first solo album after her cloudy departures from both En Vogue and Lucy Pearl is a musical and lyrical statement of intent. Unabashedly old-school in sound and arrangements, DAWN's subject matter ranges from come-hither sexy in the sultry, '70s-sounding "Set It Off" through tales of striving against impossible odds in the acoustic guitar-accompanied "Get Up Again." The connecting thread here is the album's school-of-hard-knocks sense of reality, coupled with a musical depth not readily apparent in either of Robinson's previous outfits. Witness the Bill Withers-style rhythm of "Meaning of a Woman," which also quotes from "Lady Marmalade," and the quote from her contemporary R Kelly in "Fed Up."
There's also a sense of liberation here; Robinson has freed herself up to explore both her sensual and stronger sides. In the seductive "I Don't Know Why," having run down the list of her reactions to her man's attractions, she assures us, almost as an aside, that "if he lets me down, I won't stick around." Given DAWN's laundry list of producers, it's a tribute to the single-mindedness of its creator that its vision of a funky, strong woman looking towards the future with an eye on her past remains rock-solid throughout.
- Format: CD
- Genre: R&B
- Released: 2002-01-29