From the outset, Winans’ CV is certainly impressive – having been born into the highly-regarded Winans gospel dynasty, he has already worked alongside the likes of Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, R. Kelly, Jennifer Lopez, Brian McKnight and The Notorious BIG. If ‘Hurt No More’ is anything to go by, he was certainly taking notes along the way.
Winans’ stirring talents evidently raised the ear of the ultimate urban tastemaker, Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs, who subsequently served as executive producer on the album, and released it on his own Bad Boy label. As a result of this teaming, ‘Hurt No More’ is a collection of hyper-slick, all-too-familiar urban tracks. Winans is hardly striking out of the R&B mould, yet why bother when a blinding array of stars have been drafted in for turd-polishing duties, among them Slim, Loon, Foxy Brown and Black Rob ‘Never Really Was’ and ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’, cannily centred around Madonna and Enya samples respectively, are little more than fancy karaoke numbers. ‘Pretty Girl Bullshit’ serves as some up-tempo relief from the overbearing R. Kelly vibe of the rest of the album, but one marginally funky track amid 18 schmaltzy ballads does not an album make.
What looks like a rather finely crafted album on paper ultimately fails to materialise once heard. In today’s oversubscribed R&B circles it takes more than a six-pack and an A-list mentor to make the magic happen. Perhaps he should have taken less notes around those celebs and listened up every once in a while…