Keri Hilson Returns With Comeback Single “Bae”!

15 years ago Keri Hilson seemed set to compete with Ciara, Rihanna, and Beyoncé with the release of her 2010 album "No Boys Allowed”. After the mainstream pop success of “Pretty Girl Rock”, she seemed poised to follow-up with bigger and more lasting success. Unfortunately, in the intervening 15 years, Keri has not released another musical project since! Instead, she’s pivoted to acting in low budget Tubi movies and has only gone viral in the last few years for peddling the debunked 5G coronavirus conspiracy. Needless to say, many of her fans have grown disappointed with Miss Keri Baby.

However, don’t lose hope y’all because Keri is back with her cute, but forgettable comeback single “Bae”. Co-written with Tre Ace, the R&B songstress returns with a 2010s-style trap R&B track that samples Hurricane Chris’ classic 2007 “A Bay Bay”. The song is an ode to Keri Hilson’s lover. The highlight is simply hearing Keri’s voice after 15 years of near radio silence! Instantly, I was taken back to my college days listening to her hits “Knocks You Down” and “Energy”.

Now for the bad. The song sounds very dated and the lyrics are too juvenile for a 42 year old singer that should honestly be trying to make grown & sexy music at this point. It’s always hilarious seeing these singers who had a few hits 15-20 years ago try to come back with a similar sound, not realizing that everyone has moved on. It’s weird that Keri even used this sample because she came to prominence in the alt-r&b/dance fusion of the late 2000s so this sound is not at all what she rose to prominence with. She probably would have done better with another Timbaland collab like their 2006 smash “The Way I Are”, especially with the resurgence of dance-pop on the charts.

Overall, her comeback single sounds like any other trap R&B song from the last 10 years. I also hated the use of auto-tune for someone with such a nice voice. No, Keri is not a powerhouse singer like Beyoncé but she can definitely sing better than her contemporaries Rihanna and Ciara, albeit lacking their “It” factor personalities. Ultimately, I don’t understand why she’s making a comeback. Is it to show that she can still compete with her more successful contemporaries (who are now either semi-retired and/or no longer chasing chart hits like that anymore) or that she can hang with the Gen-Z crowd who doesn’t even know who she is. My recommendation would have been to tap into that millennial nostalgia by going the dance-pop route and just riding the festival circuit. She’s not going to get far in today’s shrunken R&B world due to ageism and a less-than-solid fanbase. Perhaps her best route may be penning hits for the new generation of pop & R&B singers coming up because this ain’t it!