Album Review: Ego Ruins Everything by Kenyon Dixon
Watts’ steadiest R&B craftsman plays a man who’d rather go numb than admit he misses her.
K-Ci Hailey sang “Cry for You” as if the crying had started already. And ‘90s R&B developed an entire wing with men like him in mind. They cried, they begged, they fell on their knees and were loved harder for every single second of that. Kenyon Dixon has been releasing his own R&B from Watts at a relentless pace for over a decade now. On Ego Ruins Everything, the LP starts with a woman’s voice asking him one question: “So when was the last time you were happy?” And the man would much prefer to do just about anything else than to give her an answer.
The first attempt of doing just that comes in the form of a promise, sung above keyboard chords and a wandering bassline in “I’D CHOOSE YOU,” where he goes all the way and promises that, given this chance all over again, “Girl, I guarantee beginning to the end/I’d choose you.” But he can’t stick to his word very long. Then he’s at the bar late at night on “RUNNING AWAY,” drinking more than he used to, maintaining the G code and its unspoken mantra of “never show them you’re down,” and when a therapist asks him whether he actually loves this woman, he shrugs the man off, saying, “Fuck he know ‘bout feelings and moods?” Towards the end of the song, he plots with his boys how to have fun for another night, one voice proclaiming he’s trying to be the man tonight.
In “THE MAN,” he holds a party for himself, surrounded by beautiful girls filling his call log and DMs, inviting her and her two friends and your friends too, unable to keep track of his own history, “She say I hit her, I probably did.” The bravado is written well enough to serve as evidence against him. He tries to “SHOW&PROVE” his case on rented compliments, lines which any singer could give any woman in any club, “You’re not basic, everybody’s favorite / The center of attention,” given to a woman whom he never once describes.
All that talking carries over to the bedroom, where he acts as her teacher in “TALK YOU THROUGH IT,” watching her with his eyes locked on him, her head held high, leading her through the way and loving her losing control. Nearby, “NIGHTS LIKE THESE (COME THROUGH)” and “BREATHE” merge into each other, sounding pretty and patient and hard to distinguish one from another even from across the room. The most dramatic moment in either of those songs is the spoken conversation in “BREATHE,” where the two voices discuss whether to give it another shot until one of them whispers “shh, breathe.”
Picking up fights with her becomes foreplay in “REAL GOOD,” where he presses her buttons just for the sake of losing, watching her struggle to contain a smile in the middle of their argument and banking on making up with her later. He shows how much of the rebound sex he’s capable of on “FHOMM,” with a hook dedicated to his lack of care about his ex, and even fails to live up to his words, “Damn, I miss my ex-girlfriend.” The best lyrics in his entire collection come to light on “BLAH,” a bedroom scene between two people going through the motions of making love, “We play our roles, rehearsed every line,” their hands finding the same positions, until he stops trying to talk and sings “Blah, blah, blah, blah” in place of sweet words.
He hits rock bottom in “WHAT NIGGAS DO,” texting the same message three times in a row, putting a woman in an Uber car before her tears stop falling, feeling nothing at all from all of that and admitting his unwillingness to let all this ego and pride turn him into a monster. By “[STILL] RUNNING,” his lyrics have changed to fit his desperate state, “Can’t run anyway.” He finally says it straight in the title track, in one long verse, where he prays every night for her, “Put me back in her head,” wakes up with her in his thoughts and describes the strangest scene in his whole confession, himself singing these songs on stage with crowds singing them back to him. Then he goes and gives out the only advice he has never followed himself, telling a woman on “THE LIGHT” that she won’t find what she’s looking for while she’s high, not in a liquor store, and telling a man to put God back in the center and let a good woman hold him down.
In “NO JODECI,” everyone in his life believes in the lie, and he confesses what it costs him. People think he’s perfect, bring him their problems, and he just listens to them without ever mentioning that he’s one and the same. His chorus hits right at the group who made crying men into a headline act, “Girl, I can’t cry for you, this ain’t no Jodeci,” pride kept like a rule he never wrote but doesn’t want to break. He lets out one crack on the bridge, “Girl, I can’t take another heartbreak,” then returns to the “whoas” until he runs out of words and swallows the note which made every singer before him famous for holding.
Solid (★★★½☆)
Favorite Track(s): “BLAH,” “NO JODECI,” “EGO RUINS EVERYTHING”