Normani – ‘1:59’ (Featuring Gunna)

How do you solve a problem like Normani? The much-hyped former member of the 2010s best-selling girl group Fifth Harmony has been at it with this solo career since 2018! After several high-profile features and three possible lead singles (2019’s buoyant ‘Motivation’, 2021’s slinky Aaliyah-esque ‘Wild Side’ and 2022’s airy ‘Fair’), many of her fans have been left wondering if the debut album will ever be released.

Well folks, the wait is nearly over! On April 26th, Normani dropped her first single in two years featuring the Georgia rapper Gunna. The track interestingly harkens back to Aaliyah’s ‘Come Over’, the 2003 posthumous classic that captured the singer longing for her lover via phone. In this 2024 update, voicemails are replaced by the gentle tapping of text messages in the background throughout the track.

Normani’s expert use of vocal stacking combined with Gunna’s sing-rapping make for a solid R&B effort that should satiate Normani fans until June 14, when she unwraps her debut album ‘Dopamine’ after a half-decade wait. It is very obvious that this is merely a buzz single welcoming Normani back into the fold as well as kicking her back into the Spotify algorithm; Gunna’s nearly 40 million Spotify listeners sure don’t hurt the bottom line!

Normani has promised in recent interviews that the songs on ‘Dopamine’ fully speak to her artistic sensibility. If that is the case, I can only hope the rest of the music is a bit more upbeat than ‘1:59’. At her core, Normani is a pop singer and should release music that highlights her incredible dance skills and her vocal dexterity. These downtempo and midtempo R&B songs are too formulaic and get lost in the sauce amongst recent offerings from her contemporaries like Tyla, Chlöe Bailey, and SZA.

Nevertheless, you should check out ‘1:59’, another solid but otherwise unremarkable addition to the very slim solo discography of Normani, an artist trying to fulfill her early promise.