Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 01/13/2012 at 4:31 PM Reviews

The Popdust Files: jennifer hudson, ne-yo, r&b, rick ross

Let’s all take a second to imagine the Chris Brown version of the theme for the film adaptation of Steve Harvey’s Act Like A Woman, Think Like A Man, in which he stars. (The book and what we’ve seen of the film are exactly as dudesplainy as it sounds like.) Good, now you’ve got an excellent baseline by which Jennifer Hudson’s version, with contribs by Ne-Yo and Rick Ross, will sound great! Hear it below:

lThink-like-a-man-tags by Rhone

This is in fact the second track to our knowledge) based on Harvey’s book, which is two above par as far as most relationship self-help books go. Fortunately, the beat’s adequately catchy the performers elevate the questionable material they’ve been given. J. Hud, in particular, proves why she deserves to be such an R&B force. When she’s not singing the title in jingle tones, every line comes like a punch to its subject–it’s a breakup track–and every rafter is ripped from the roof. Ne-Yo and Rick Ross, meanwhile, are both solid but uncharacteristic: the former spikier than usual, the latter far less ostentatious and far more romantic. If you were to locate a line like “Leaning on my auto, she so photogenic/ Can I take a picture she my Mona Lisa” in his back catalogue, it’d take considerable fandom or work. It all makes for an annoyingly good track anchoring a movie more likely to merely be annoying. At least you won’t need to stay for the credits to hear it.

POPDUST SAYS:
[starreview tpl=16]