Album Review: THE NAIJAMERICAN DREAM by Adanna Duru
The Orange County R&B singer turns cheating men, fake friends, and ignored therapy advice into grudge songs with jokes in them. Her love songs go just as hard for the couch.
A therapist advised Adanna Duru to put it all behind her, but she didn’t like the piece of advice very much. There must be something in the Nigerian-American singer raised in Orange County that encourages her to dwell on every slight until it brings a new song to life—cheaters, fake friends, and her tastes in men included. But she can become tender instantly if only there is a worthy man to appreciate it. And both moods she treats the same seriously on THE NAIJAMERICAN DREAM.
After getting hit and quit several times, she starts praying and saving money, becoming a solitary creature. However, she is willing to give away everything on “Passenger Seat” if only the man in the driver’s seat promises never to leave her alone, leaving her worries high above the lower deck. Then she repeats the same game on “One on One,” booking the night with the person she believes could fall in love with her someday, but it’s not today since she wants to feel the vibe, and warns: “If you wanna, maybe you could make me water/If you treat me nicely, I could be your Aphrodite.” Bas accepts the challenge and offers her a ride until five o’clock in the morning, punning the “Marriott Bonvoy” into “bon voyage” into “bon appétit,” and claims other women get nothing from him but crickets.
Her ex-bestie, who started acting like her foe, gets dismissed from the roster on “WHITE GIRL,” while Duru appears in the Maybach, pays her way using good credit, and states her ambition, breaking up the way white girls get to blow up, which may be considered the most outspoken statement about the music industry she is willing to make. Her therapist shows up again on “REVENGE” with the same piece of advice, but she crashes out, revealing her obsession—the man who does not like girls too Black and her own preference for such a type of guy. The alibi was Call of Duty with her homies; the truth was another woman, caught red-handed. She hopes her future daughter would be born with nappy hair and be raised to be proud of it, but decides to take her revenge on him by leaving him alone and wondering whether she can.
However, when the grievances get numerous, she takes the night off, listing her plans on “Simple things,” spending the afternoon at the poolside, having hot tea, sun rays on her skin, listening to her songs when she gets head in the backseat, wearing perfume, her skin scented with honey, and sending a message to her friends with the words “let’s go.” Duckwrth also shows up during her crisis; he tries to get out of his head while strange people stare at the function, flirts that she is hot enough to need an ice cube and a fan, and finally, he gets satisfied with braids in his hair and commas in his account.
A perfect romance consists of a couch, watching Friends reruns (“Covers hittin’ better than the club right now”) and on “Million X Over,” she deciphers the look on his face that speaks about his love that will not fade, and promises him that even if he would not have anything to his name, he will remain hers. In the case of “Shooby Dooby,” before that, it was a kiss that she was not able to call the guy even after. She was scared of not being enough for him and felt the pressure while he called her lover, and she could only come up with nonsense syllables for the title.
Ogi joins her for the self-talk on “Daily Affirmations”; it is a kind of mantra about taking her time, getting her shine, being alright and loving her own things, which is the quietest moment and the most important of her song. Not as much is needed for “ENERGY”; Gucci on, all stuff stored, do not disturb zone around her body, the warning “You’ll miss her if you blink,” and the woman, who is so particular in everything, becomes quite generic for one song. While covering the amapiano version of Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman,” she takes advantage of a self-myth, which is greater than the one she can create, casting spells, sensing the needs of her lover like the rain onto the seeds, insisting that she is not boasting since she is the one, and the hand-me-down boast may fit for her.
It became known to her that people consider her a player, so she responds to this on “2 sweet” with a technicality—she is too sweet to be a hoe, sexy and says so, slow by choice. She swats men right and left, rejects the co-sign, and confesses that the only lie she can tell is: “Anytime I slept on myself, bitch, I was lying.” TiaCorine proves the opposite—she is no hoe, but dances like one, surrounded by four or five armed men, hated for her richness and enjoyment, but gets paid for it.
The woman, who would rather puke into a cup and clean it up herself than trust another man, finds the exception on “Nothing to Say”—the man who understood her, always helps her out in any situation, and adores her even if she is a bitch. When push comes to shove, everybody leaves, and he is still there. She has nothing to say except “I love you,” which is harder for her to say than any curse she has said before, and she ends the song with the silliest vow she could come up with: “You bagged a baddie with a fat ass, what a badass,” and then, to be sure that he understood, repeats it without taking back.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “REVENGE,” “2 sweet,” “Nothing to Say”