Both are pretty good.
Foxx’s chart attack gets going with “I Don’t Need It”; the Oscar winner has so much bounce in his step you begin to wonder if he’s still playing Ray Charles. It’s also the only party song where he flies solo, with no MTV homies in sight to make him look good. I guess when he says “I Don’t Need It”, he really doesn’t.
The New School thread continues, tweaking vocals with Auto-Tune, mixing up hot shot producers and all-star collaborators, and generally making Foxx look like he was born to rule the radio. “Number One” is a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever there’s been one. Even without Lil Wayne’s show-stealing guest rap, Foxx’s confident flow makes him king of the dancefloor and you can’t help but bow at his Hollywood altar.
Things slow down a bit after the so-called “Intuition Interlude”. He seems just as comfortable in the vintage R&B sound, thankfully, and works classic ballads (“Overdose”) and 90s R&B (“Freakin’ Me”) to his money-makin’ advantage.
It’s risky business trying to get your audience all hot ‘n heavy: doing it wrong just makes you look silly. So when Jamie proposes that he “Grind into the song / Imma do you all night long” to what sounds like the non-stop cawing of a hadida (trust me, it will after three minutes non-stop), his female fans might feel a headache coming on. If that doesn’t kill it for you, wait until he artificially deepens his voice: now it sounds like a demon from hell wants to pull your jeans off. Eish.
That one misstep aside, the acting/singing crown is now firmly in Jamie Foxx’s hands. Thanks J-Lo, it was good while it lasted. Intuition is a catchy R&B hit parade that should be storming the charts in no time.