Beauty & The Streets - Mixtape, Vol. 1

iTunes Review

Beauty & The Streets is one of two mixtapes Mya is using to launch her own record label, Planet 9. (The other, Mya and Friends Present… is a compilation of previously released material.) For the first time in her career, she has almost total control over her music, and her newfound independence is felt throughout Beauty & The Streets. The album is oriented towards Southern rap (it was co-released by Young Empire Entertainment, a division of Rap-A-Lot Records), and Mya has fully embraced the region’s slow, heavy, bass-driven sound. She's long been one of rap’s favorite songstresses, and she is particularly well matched to the Houston rap heavyweights that appear here to lend support. In “I’m Back” and “Show Me Something” demanding lyrics are matched to propulsive beats, and the baritone flows of Slim Thug and Bun B give the sense that this is R&B for grown-up club goers. But Beauty & The Streets isn’t single-minded. Mya switches up the tempo for “Club Go Crazy,” a dizzying dance track, and shifts easily between the content of “Black Out,” a condemnation of domestic violence, and “Ponytail,” a fantastically nasty sex fantasy.