Embattled singer and rapper
Tory Lanez arrived as a contender when his debut single "Say It," enhanced with a sample of
Brownstone's 1994 hit "If You Love Me," became a Top Ten hit on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop chart and reached number 23 on the Hot 100. The tender ballad eventually went platinum. Prior to the release of his debut album,
I Told You,
Lanez flooded the market with an album's worth of promotional singles, and he became just as known -- if not more known -- for his persistent provocation of fellow Torontonian
Drake.
I Told You, an uneven and promising debut album made of almost entirely new material, shows that
Lanez remains in
Drake's shadow. He might be able to leave it once he's able to refrain from reactionary creative choices, like covering the Caribbean-flavored "Controlla" and recording the trend-hopping "Luv," included here, in its wake. Likewise,
I Told You is excessive in length, a quality it shares with
Drake's albums. It's padded out with skits that effectively add a part-biographical, part-fantastical filmic edge, but there's ultimately a solid 40-minute album within the 79-minute program. Vocally,
Lanez shifts back and forth through a number of approaches and continues to show that he's most affecting when in vulnerable falsetto mode, as on "Cold Hard Love" and "High." He's definitely more skilled at singing than he is at rapping. A smart, succinct selection of the best pre-album cuts and the highlights here would make for one of the year's better commercial R&B debuts. ~ Andy Kellman