Weekend is the third album of R&B singer Kenny Lattimore

Kenny Lattimore

Kenny Lattimore is an American R&B singer. Among his most popular hits were "Never Too Busy" and "For You".- Early career :...

 and the first under new record label Arista Records

Arista Records

Arista was an American record label. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment and operated under the RCA Music Group. The label was founded in 1974 by Clive Davis, who formerly worked for CBS Records...

, released in 2001.

Biography

Weekend signified a new direction for Lattimore upon its release in 2001. Rather than progress further into the introspective soul territory of the critically acclaimed previous release From the Soul of Man

From the Soul of Man

- Biography :Critics uniformly lauded this album as a great leap from his debut on the scene 2 years prior to this largely mature effort. The album opens with the first single "Days Like This," an introspective midtempo R&B track with avant garde electronic inflections...

, Weekend embraced a trendier modern-R&B sound. One reviewer observes, "On Weekend, he delivers an 11-track collection that alternately percolates and simmers, showing the young singer is equally at home whether he's pumping out a party jam or serenading a lover with a passionate ballad."

This new album for a new record label enlisted the help of newer producers like The Characters (Troy Taylor & Charles Farrar), Raphael Saadiq

Raphael Saadiq

Raphael Saadiq is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. Saadiq has been a standard bearer for "old school" R&B since his early days as a member of the multiplatinum group Tony! Toni! Toné! He also produced songs of such artists as TLC, Joss Stone, D'Angelo, Mary J...

 (of Tony! Toni! Tone!

Tony! Toni! Toné!

Tony! Toni! Toné! is an American Soul/R&B group from Oakland, California, popular during the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s. During the band's heyday, it was composed of D'wayne Wiggins on lead vocals and guitar, his brother Raphael Saadiq on lead vocals and bass, and their cousin Timothy...

 fame), and G-funk

G-funk

G-funk, or Gangsta-funk, is a sub-genre of hip hop music that emerged from Westcoast gangsta rap in the early 1990s. G-funk incorporates multi-layered and melodic synthesizers, slow hypnotic grooves, a deep bass, background female vocals, the extensive sampling of P-funk tunes, and a high-pitched...

 pioneer Battlecat

Battlecat (producer)

Kevin Gilliam, better know by his stage name Battlecat, is an American hip hop producer from Long Beach, California.-Biography:He is well known for producing artists such as Snoop Dogg, The Game, Xzibit and Tha Eastsidaz along with a number of other West Coast rappers...

. Overall, the acoustic guitars, jazz sensibilities, and old soul with which Lattimore was previously associated was replaced with mechanical, stuttering beats, synthesizers, and youthful lyrics.

In a sharp contrast to previous releases, Lattimore sharply scales back his contributions as a songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 in favor of experimenting with younger talent. Former writing collaborators such as Keith Crouch, Diane Warren, and Barry Eastmond were traded for up-and-coming talent like future hitmaker Johnta Austin

Johnta Austin

Johntá Austin is an American singer-songwriter, who is currently signed to Jermaine Dupri's So So Def Recordings. He is commonly known for collaborating with Producers Bryan-Michael Cox, Jermaine Dupri & The Production Team StarGate. Austin was awarded two Grammy Awards for his work on the songs...

, songwriter behind a chart-ubiquitous 2005 pair of songs: Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She made her recording debut with the release of her eponymous studio album in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, whom she later married in 1993...

's "We Belong Together" and Mary J. Blige

Mary J. Blige

Mary Jane Blige is an American singer-songwriter, record producer and occasional actress. She is a recipient of nine Grammy Awards and four American Music Awards, and has recorded eight multi-platinum albums. She is the only artist with Grammy Award wins in Pop, Rap, Gospel, and R&B. Blige has...

's "Be Without You

Be Without You

"Be Without You" is an R&B song written by American singer-songwriter Mary J. Blige, Johnta Austin, Bryan Michael Cox, and Jason Perry for Blige's seventh studio album The Breakthrough. It was released as the album's lead single in late 2005. It was produced by Cox and released as the album's first...

."

The album showcased its title track as an exuberant, uptempo first single. The bassline of "Weekend" interpolated Blondie

Blondie (band)

Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...

's classic "Rapture

Rapture (song)

"Rapture" is a single by the American new wave band Blondie. It was released in January 1981 and was the second and final song to be released from the band's 1980 top 10 album Autoamerican, the first being "The Tide Is High", which had topped the chart in the US and UK. "Rapture" went on to reach...

." Though the single performed well at radio and was well-received across the Atlantic, overall album sales suffered from lack of promotion.

A sonically modern trend dominates the album, but a minority of songs stand in contrast to their counterparts. "Lately" and "Come To Me" are downtempo, bass-heavy, rhythmic tracks with 70's soul influenced arrangements and sensual lyrics. Both could have easily fit a thematic predecessor to From The Soul Of Man. Renowned for his lithe tenor voice, Lattimore slips into a Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....

-esque falsetto during the latter. Notably, the same timbre anchors Lattimore's cover of "Just to Keep You Satisfied

Just to Keep You Satisfied

"Just to Keep You Satisfied" is a song by soul singer Marvin Gaye. The song was the b-side to Marvin's modest 1974 hit, "You Sure Love to Ball" and was the eighth and final song issued on the singer's 1973 album, Let's Get It On.-Background:...

," on the 1999 Marvin Gaye tribute Marvin Is 60. Also, Lattimore has also previously established a convention of closing each album with a gospel song. In this case, "Healing" produced by George Duke

George Duke

George Duke is a multi-faceted American musician, known as a keyboard pioneer, composer, singer and producer in both jazz and popular mainstream musical genres. He has worked with numerous acclaimed artists as arranger, music director, writer and co-writer, record producer and professor of music...

 provides an organ-driven climactic coda to Weekend.

Track listing

1. Weekend (4:38)
2. Baby You're the One (4:10)
3. Come to Me (4:42)
4. Can You Feel Me (featuring Shanice
   Shanice
   Shanice Lorraine Wilson-Knox , better known as Shanice, is a Grammy-nominated American R&B/soul singer-songwriter. She scored two Top 5 Billboard hit single's "I Love Your Smile" in 1991, and "Saving Forever for You" in 1993. In 1999, Shanice scored another top hit song, "When I Close My Eyes"...
   
   ) (4:57)
5. If Love Is What You Want (4:26)
6. Lately (4:22)
7. Don't Deserve (3:52)
8. Right Down to It (4:18)
9. The Things I'll Do (3:58)
10. Who (4:16)
11. Healing (2:46)
12. Goodbye Serenade (4:40) - JAPAN ONLY BONUS TRACK