When the intro of your debut-album is done by none other than Aretha Franklin, you might expect to get some attention. On top of that, when you are blessed with a truely soulfull and slick voice, combined with what women call “a tremendous body” and “lucious lips”, you can expect to have your album flying off the shelves.

That is what is happening to Trey Songz at the moment. Growing to the status of new R&B legend, his album “I gotta make it” is HOT in The States at the moment.
In Europe it seems that he still has to rise from the underground. We do hear some of his songs and some nice collabo’s with other artists, but he is no talk of the town yet.

Just to give an impression, let us take a look at some reviews on the internet (credit and copyright to the rightful owners):

Amazon editorial review:

Trey Songz is a 20-year-old singer/songwriter who hails from Petersburg, Virginia. Having drawn musical inspiration from a wide variety of contemporary R&B/ Hip Hop artists, his songs are filled with a passion and a mosaic of his young adult life. Though he is still a “baby” in the game he has cut his teeth writing and collaborating with some of the industries most respected artists and producers including: Juvenile, Twista, Scott Storch, Troy Taylor, Organized Noize, Dre & vidal, Lil Jon, Track Boyz, Patti LaBelle, Donnell Jones, Gerald Levert, T.I., Omarion, & Obie Trice. His music can best be described as, R&B with Hip-Hop urgency!

Virgin:

This boy can sing – period. He can also rap perfectly well too. The album opens with perhaps the coolest endorsement a young R&B artist could possibly wish for, namely Aretha “The Queen” Franklin warbling her best wishes to the man.
The album’s glossy sound – and boy, is it glossy – is thanks to Troy Taylor, whose credentials include work with Patti LeBelle, SWV and B2K. What follows Ms Franklin’s opening remarks is fairly standard fare, namely pop/R&B, served up with dollops of material that veers towards a more traditional soul sound with faint echoes of one M. Gaye.
It’s not stunning, but when the material’s fairly indifferent Trey’s voice manages to haul it up notch or two. One to watch…

Personally I hear R. Kelly, Usher and even Keith Sweat in his voice. With being only 20 that is quite some indication for what we may expect from this young fellow. Will keep tracking him for European performances.

[ update: check out his performances at AOL to get a good impression of his live skillz ]