Kele’s lyrical strategy in Tenderoni, the first single from his debut album, is brilliant in its simplicity: it doesn’t matter how bad your lyrics are if you drown them out with a thumping backbeat and synth sounds. And if you’re getting bored singing the repetitive and only pseudo-rhyming chorus (“So don’t you know, you are more than this/And you were built for greatness,” four times in a row), instead of adding third unique verse, just spell the name of your song a couple times. It makes things nice and easy for the artist, but pretty difficult for a listener to get through the song. Tenderoni is well-suited for a club setting, where the words would be inaudible anyway, and there’s at least a chance a DJ might mix in another song and add some variety.
Words: Katie Lannan
