Mya: Fear Of Flying : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Mya, the ghetto-bourgeois Lolita with the wafer-thin voice, is back, bumping the attitude-laden soundtrack to her next video compilation. The CD's title is lifted from Erica Jong's infamous sex opus, but Mya's take on female sexual liberation is less celebratory than bleakly street-savvy. Almost all the lyrics are along the lines of "You gon' miss me, boy," "Tell that bitch to stop calling my house," "Prada," "bling-bling" and "I ain't never loved nobody like this before." The same slicked-up, jittery beats and staccato rhythms that have been flooding the airwaves for the past few years are here in abundance, thanks to Wyclef, Swizz Beatz (who has started to seriously repeat himself), She'kspere and other of-the-moment production hands. The signature quiver in Mya's voice does give her some sonic identity, but otherwise this could be the music of Destiny's Child, Aaliyah or any of the countless interchangeable hip-hop/R&B divas. (RS 840)

ERNEST HARDY