The Grown Folks Music featured on Vivian Green's 2015 Vivid album is finally receiving it's just due. With several upbeat tracks featured on the album, fans and Urban AC radio stations agree that singles like "Get Right Back To My Baby" and "Work" has captured the ears of the adult R&B audience. But not just vocally. Great production and lyrics also contributed to the success and hip hop boy genius, Kwame, did it.
Kwame (Holland) hit the hip-hop scene during the late '80s with his debut album Kwame The Boy Genius, which quickly introduced the savvy New York 16-year-old's passion for music and his style. Holland wrote and produced his own tracks from the outset of his career. He presented a uniqueness that was not only reflected through his music but, his polka-dotted fashion, highlighted high-top fade and even the title spelling of hits like, "Ownlee Eue (Only You)" and "Oneovdabigboiz (One Of The Big Boys)."
Fans didn't hear too much more from Holland musically during the early '90s and an inside look at his life and career presented on season 9 of TV One's Unsung, episode 3, revealed why. As the story goes, a new sound of hip-hop hit the streets and the airwaves, bringing in new talent like Brooklyn native, Biggie Smalls (The Notorious B.I.G.,) whose 1994 single "Unbelievable" pretty much took aim at Holland, causing his fan base to question whether or not the rapper was outdated.
"Your life is played out like Kwame and those f*cking polka dots," are the words from the late rapper Biggie that shifted Holland's career and even caused him to question his own legacy as a artists.
"This can not be it," recalled Holland of his emotional state of mind on Unsung during what was perceived to be his career breakdown. "I can not go out like this. I'm never going to go out like this."
Those words of life spoken over his career reigned true for the boy genius, who may have stepped back from the mic as an emcee but, moved forward in his music career using a skill that he'd honed since his childhood days of working with producer Hurby "Luv Bug" Azor.
'Written, produced and composed by" were the album credits that Holland aspired to in likeness of his idol Prince. Though initially those credits came under the aliases K-1 Million or K1 Mil, eventually Holland reclaimed the name that brought him success in the late '80s and produced hits for major artists, tv and film.
In 2015 Holland received the album credits he desired with Green's fifth studio album, Vivid. The full album was written, produced and composed by @KWAMEDIDIT, as confirmed on Twitter.
@OhthatsWanda @iamviviangreen yes . I did her whole album .
— KWAMÈ (@KWAMEDIDIT) August 4, 2016
Green's 2015 Essence interview revealed how both she and Holland felt she needed a change in tempo and style from her previously recorded projects and went in a different direction with the album's first single, "Get Right Back To My Baby," which samples the classic Frankie Beverly and Maze single "Before I Let Go."
"He gave me my first uptempo single, like ever - that I ever had," explained Green in the season 9 Unsung episode. "...My first top five record in like, ten years. He just opened me up to a whole new audience of people which I think is like super cool."
The 13-track album was released under Holland's boutique label Make Noise Records and is represented by the album's second single, "Grown Folks Music (Work.)"
Buy Vivid here.
