Sneak Peak Album Review of the Lost Files by Donell Jones

Donell Jones is an artist that I love because he is an inspirational person and someone that kids can look to as a role model. According to his website, he is a former member of the Gangster Disciples street gang. He struggled with his love for music and pressure from his peers to stay a part of the street gang. He was quickly becoming a production of the urban environment that he has raised in. He found himself struggling in an attempt to decide if he was going to push to become an RNB artist and take advantage of his musical talents or if he would rather stay in the gang. He eventually embraced his musical talents and became an RNB songwriter within the musical industry. He would write songs for artists and provide them with their next hit. He has written for such artists as Brownstone, Silk, 702 and Usher just to name a few. He has also worked with artists such as Styles and Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes (of TLC). His album Journey of a Gemini was released in 2007 and despite including some great songs and production by The Underdogs, Mike City and Tim & Bob, Jones faced a lot of promotional problems with Sony over the album. I have been a fan of Jones for some time and so I decided to pre order his new CD titled The Lost Files via Amazon but I thought I would listen to the CD via Youtube in order to determine how good the album actually is before it ships.

The CD includes just 11 songs and this is a problem for me because I wish there were more songs on the CD. This project is supposed to be a collection of bonus material but the problem is that they could only come up with 11 songs for a few years of material. This means that you are being shorted and I do feel that more should have been included here. Still, there are some amazing songs here and the best include Marry Me, Forever, and Sergeant Louise. While these songs alone are worth the price of the CD, I did not enjoy the track titled I'm Gonna Be Reggae Remix because it does not fit with the concept of the CD. There are times when going out of the box can be a good thing but this feels like a cheap effort to do so. I would rate this a 2/5 because of the length and I suggest you skip this project.