Jason Derulo Is an Audacious, Occasionally Ridiculous Pop-R&B Smoothie on ‘Nu King’
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You’d be forgiven for being surprised that Jason Derulo hadn’t released an album since 2015’s Everything Is 4. In the nine years since that full-length’s release, Derulo has kept himself in the public eye, whether through his Tiktoks or his steady stream of singles; his fizzy collaboration with the New Zealand producer Jawsh 685 “Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat” even reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 in 2020, thanks in part to a clutch assist from BTS.
That gap helps explain in part the length of Nu King, Derulo’s fifth album. The 27-track release is a travelogue of sorts through Derulo’s recent years; the Ol’ Dirty Bastard-interpolating “Swalla,” which also featured Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign, was originally released in February 2017, while the lusty, French Montana-assisted “Tip Toe” came out that November. Other offerings, like the lightly funky “Lifestyle” (which has a cameo from Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine) and the stomping “Jalebi Baby” (a TikTok hit originally by Canadian MC/producer Tesher, with Derulo hopping on a remixed version included here) date back as far as 2021.
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High-profile cameos and recognizable samples are all over Nu King, which is introduced by the singer lilting his most famous catchphrase—“Jason Derulo,” which he’d retired in the early-2010s then brought back. (He was matter-of-fact-about why: “Well, it’s a bigger hit if I sing my name at the front,” he told Ellen DeGeneres during a 2020 talk-show appearance.) It’s a “we are so back” flag-plant from someone who never really went away.
Audacity abounds on Nu King. “Spicy Margarita” balances on a hook from Canadian crooner Michael Bublé, who’s reworking his own cover of the Luis Demetrio and Pablo Beltrán Ruiz-penned standard “¿Quién será?” to get the titular drink into the mix; the result is a zippy synth-dance number that revels in its own ridiculousness, particularly at the point when Derulo gets his lover to “scream ‘Derulo’.” Other new tracks that allow Derulo to take center stage and show off his agile vocals, like the glassy devotional “Lie to Me” and the glitched-out relationship postmortem “Proximity,” showcase his strengths as a pop-R&B smoothie with a strong romantic streak. “Favorite Song” is a plush update of the murder ballad, with Derulo recounting a life-changing moment when he found his lover in bed with another. The betrayal hangs heavy on his mind and his ear: “Why’d you have to fuck him to my favorite song?” he wails, and the clank of a jail cell’s door that hits near the song’s end implies that he’ll be tormenting himself with that fateful soundtrack for a while.
There’s even an attempt to recreate the fervor that surrounded Derulo’s Imogen Heap-sampling debut single “Whatcha Say”—here, his female foil is the melancholic Brit Dido, who brings her gray-day “Thank You” to the brooding “When Love Sucks.” It falls slightly flat, if only because the association with Eminem’s fandom fable “Stan” hangs over the proceedings in such a way that makes one wonder if Derulo’s lining up another murder ballad. But on a 27-song album, they can’t all be hits—even if some of them have already received platinum plaques.
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