ARI-LENNOX-Vacancy-album-2026
“Vacancy” is a title that works as a programmatic statement but also as a trap: it suggests an absence, but the album is anything but empty.
At the third turning point in his career, Ari Lennox chooses the path of intelligent subtraction, signing a less immediately seductive work than Age/Sex/Location (2022), but more conscious in writing and managing one's own expressive space.
It's not a record that seeks a big shot or alignment with the dynamics of contemporary pop-urban. Lennox remains faithful to a sonic perimeter that intertwines soul, jazz and hip-hop of the Nineties, working with nuances rather than breaks. The result is an album that favors airiness and detail, at times more contemplative than memorable, but supported by a witty lyricism and a never-exhibited sensuality.
The writing is one of its strong points: playful without being frivolous, carnal without falling into cliché. Mobbin in DC opens the album with the elegance of a lounge singer and verses that mix disenchantment and irony (“You know where I be / This ain't calculus / No ChatGPT”), immediately clarifying the tone of the project. The title track Vacationfluid and classicist mid-tempo R&B, looks to the seventies with a lush production signed by Jermaine Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox and BoogzDaBeast who build a velvety instrumental, enriched by discreet horns and a controlled intimacy.
Over the course of the fifteen songs, Vacation it alternates moments of reflective lightness and sudden theatrical openings. Soft Girl Era And Pretzels summarize this double soul well, while Under the Moon pushes Lennox towards an almost performative, howling register. CoolDown flirts with a reggae/R&B hybrid without forcing your hand, while Horoscope — with its provocative chorus — seems designed for bedroom virality rather than algorithmic playlisting. Dreaming it wraps everything in a purple, languid patina, consistent with the aesthetics of the record.
There is also space for just one featuring, chosen with criteria: Company hosts Buju Banton, a key figure of Jamaican dancehall, in a meeting that avoids the postcard effect and reinforces the idea of an album that prefers the quality of connection to the quantity of collaborations.
Without chasing twists or forcing, Vacation strengthens Ari Lennox's position in the current R&B panorama: a composed, conscious album that works in detail and confirms a now defined stylistic code.
SCORE: 7.50
TO LISTEN NOW
Mobbin In DC – Vacancy – Horoscope
TO BE SKIPPED IMMEDIATELY
50 minutes of velvety pampering.
