Leigh-Anne - My Ego Told Me To
A fifteen-track spread across R&B, dancehall, Afrobeats, electro-pop and roots reggae.
Leigh-Anne Pinnock's solo debut 'My Ego Told Me To' earns its stripes not through nostalgia or safe choices but through a fifteen-track spread across R&B, dancehall, Afrobeats, electro-pop and roots reggae that is, at its best, genuinely exciting.
'Look into My Eyes' opens the album as an electro-pop statement of intent, and it hits hard. A pulsing, club-ready production drives a vocal that sits front and centre, Leigh-Anne's tone carrying more edge than anything she recorded with Little Mix. 'Dead and Gone' follows with a darker, moodier palette, its R&B framework giving her room to stretch into lower registers and more emotionally weighted phrasing.
The album's strongest stretch runs from 'Most Wanted' through 'Me Minus U'. 'Most Wanted', featuring Valiant and produced by Rvssian, leans fully into dancehall, and the fit is natural, Leigh-Anne's Jamaican heritage grounding the Caribbean influences. 'Best Version of Me' shifts into a warmer R&B register and contains one of the album's most memorable melodic turns in its bridge. 'Me Minus U' strips things back further, a breakup song that relies more on vocal performance than production fireworks, and Leigh-Anne delivers.
'Burning Up' and 'Been a Minute', released last summer, both perform their roles as entry points effectively. 'Burning Up' has the more immediate hook, its Afrobeats-inflected rhythm designed for playlists, while 'Been a Minute' trades in a more subtle groove. Neither is the album's best song, but both demonstrate range and the ability to shift tempos.
Where 'My Ego Told Me To' wobbles is in its middle and late sections - some tracks feel like filling space on a fifteen-song tracklist - but in the most part, the standard stays high. 'FREE' channels roots reggae with a conviction that suggests genuine affection for the genre rather than trend-chasing, its bass line warm and prominent in the mix. 'Tight Up Skirt' is brash and playful, 'Talk to Me Nice' maintains the momentum, its vocal arrangement layered and ambitious, before 'Heaven' closes.
A tighter twelve-track version with a more singular vision would have made for a sharper, more confident debut: 'My Ego Told Me To' is most convincing when the dancehall and R&B tracks take centre stage - when the production is bold, the vocal is commanding. Fifteen tracks ask a lot, and not every one delivers. Enough do, though, to suggest that Leigh-Anne's solo career has something to offer beyond what group one ever allowed.
