After enjoying an illustrious career as a producer, Maleek released his second EP in 2020 and made a full pivot in the direction of being an artiste. After a long wait, his debut album is finally here.
If Only Love Was Enough is in many ways a sequel to Maleek’s Isolation Room EP. It straddles the same midtempo, R&B fusion and lively synths he’s known for. However, instead of reinventing the wheel and pushing the sound forward in more meaningful ways, it’s mostly a rehashing of old sonic tropes and it’s honestly a mystery why it took five years for this LP to come out, if it was only going to sound this derivative.
It’s not in anyway a bad album and is in fact an acquired taste, that will most definitely find a lot of love with R&B faithfuls. Matter of fact, most of the songs on the album are decent in isolation but when played together as an album experience, it’s quite a cumbersome and tiring one. Maleek needed much more dynamism in his delivery and more expansive elements in his production too.
Take for example, Nonso Amadi’s When It Blooms. While unapologetically R&B, that albums infuses variance across board in its fusions with pop, house, swing and reggae elements for a refreshing experience. Heck, there were even beat switches all through the album. It also helped that Nonso was very dynamic with his vocal performances and his selection of features also helped to elevate the album. These sort of fine details are lacking on this LP.
All Over You kicks off things on that all-too-familiar midtempo pop fusion that Maleek’s friend and associate, Wizkid—who is also on this album—propagated with Made In Lagos, that has become such a dated formular these days. He sings about being an intense lover-boy, which is nothing we haven’t heard a million times already. Onyeoma is pretty much the same thing, except it dials the tempo up a notch and infuses more rhythmic guitar riffs. The writing, so far for Maleek standards is quite underwhelming to say the least.
Lately heads into Afro-Bashment territory and while the drums here are still eerily familiar, the arrangement and melody gives it a distinct sonic identity. Ruger also proves why he continues to be the best bet on dancehall fusion features for Afrobeats artists, with the sort of style and panache he attacks the beat with. To The Morning continues the album’s foray into Caribbean tides, with a reggae direction. Maleek approaches the record with the same R&B inflected vocals and while it isn’t bad, it isn’t great either. If you’re going to keep on spreading your R&B-esque deliveries over any beat—without soaking up the sonic atmosphere and letting that influence you—might as well just keep it strictly R&B beats.
Maleek doesn’t really help himself by sticking to the same topic mostly, despite the similar sonic elements that pervade the bulk of the LP. It would have been one thing if the music was monotonous, but the topical direction was varied but even on Summer 25, he is still singing about being lovestruck and delirious in the same way he was on the preceding tracks. When Situation kicks off and he sings “why you con dey do me strong thing?” you begin to hope that he’s about to sing from a jaded POV and switch things up a bit, but when his verse comes around it’s still the same lovestruck shenanigans.
Wizkid doesn’t help things either with an uninspired delivery, that’s so painstakingly safe that it sounds like an AI imitation of what the trademark Wizkid delivery could be. Biggie Man tries to switch things up with heavier percussion and a Zlatan feature, but it’s a lot for the rapper to salvage because Maleek can’t leave his R&B delivery bag to save himself, even on a pop beat.
Turning Up deviates from the LP’s afro roots and is R&B through and through. A Bryson Tiller or GIVEON feature would have worked wonders for it, but unfortunately Maleek remains in gear one for the entirety of the song. Despite most of the songs being monotonous so far, they aren’t inherently bad. It’s only exhausting hearing them back to back, but Mirror is such a nothing track that’s only here to pad the run time. 4 My Body ft. Tiwa Savage sounds refreshing after an onslaught of sameness, with Tiwa’s vocals being a divergent refreshment and Maleek doing something different with a trap cadence in one of his verses.
Lagos Party sounds like a tamer version of Kontrol, Maleek’s biggest hit. To his credit, he executes on here like a pop artist and it results in a decent song. It also helps that he isn’t singing about being crazy about a love interest, like he has done a million times already on the LP. Who Be This One is a solemn pop song, that aims for that larger-than-life, spiritual feel with Maleek reflecting on his humble beginnings and musing about his current reality. It’s a good song, that would have worked better with a more soulful production to match the sentiment.
Set It Off is the sonic twin of Lately, with its swing drums and it makes it all the more clear how the Ruger feature elevated the latter. Make It Right sounds like a b-tec Essence without the P2J sophisticated production in the jazz horns and Tems’ overall dynamism in execution. Maleek is back to singing about the depths of his love and how intent he is in showing his love interest. You know, like he hasn’t said it already multiple times in the same way since the album started.
The Pain is a trap fusion song and it seems like Maleek saved the best for last. He’s still singing about love, but now he’s jaded from all the heavy lifting in the face of unrequited love. His melodic rapping isn’t anything groundbreaking, but it’s functional and such a refreshing deviation from his flat singing on the entirety of the album. Of course, a good song being at the end doesn’t exactly justify the excruciating monotonous experience but it does leave you with something.
Final Verdict:
Sonic Cohesion & Transitions: 1.5/2
Expansive Production: 0.6/2
Songwriting: 1.0/2
Delivery: 0.7/2
Track Sequencing: 1.0/2
Total: 4.8/10
