Summer Walker Has Money on Her Mind — But What’s Truly Rich Is Her Sound

Summer Walker has been contemplating a pivot to golddigging since her beloved 2019 studio debut, Over It. She broke through by longing for an ever-evasive balance of casual sex and compassion with “Girls Need Love,” and then followed it lamenting about a dude “Playing Games” on her next smash. Yet, amidst the R&B ballads of romantic dissatisfaction that have become Walker’s calling card, she proposed a solution: what if she chose money over love? “Seems like you gain more from a sugar daddy or a drug dealer,” she mused on Over It’s “Just Might” (as in “just might be a ho”). “No Love,” the biggest single from her 2021 sophomore studio effort, Still Over It (an album set against her tumultuous breakup with its most prominent producer, London on Da Track), said it frankly. “All I’m tryna see is your credit card, swipe it all for me,” SZA sang on her guest verse, as if she took the words out of Walker’s mouth. “Just CC me, just VV me/Just that dick when I call.”

Her latest album, Finally Over It signals the end of Walker’s trilogy on heartbreak. To mark it, the singer went all in on a marrying-for-money motif. The cover art reimagines an image of then-26-year-old model Anna Nicole Smith marrying 89-year-old oil baron J. Howard Marshall in 1994. Smith, famously and unsuccessfully fought for a portion of Marshall’s estate when he died less than two years after their marriage, though Smith insisted she really was in love with him. Walker’s pre-Finally loosie “Spend It” embodied what much of America thought was actually behind that union – “I want your black card,” Walker coos. “You can keep your heart.”

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But what’s really richer now is her sound. “I’m usually just like, ‘Oh he broke my heart, put it on an 808 trap beat,’” Walker admitted jokingly to Complex’s Speedy Mormon about her approach up to this point (which is, in fact, a bit of an oversimplification). “Now we’re trying different things.” To that end, Finally Over It leans deep into the lushness of R&B maestros from the 1990s and early 2000s – waymakers like Bryan Michael Cox, Kuk Harrell, and Troy Taylor. Her layered vocals feel fuller and more intentional than ever, and she’s thanked the greats for teaching her their techniques outright.

Yes, the album is filled with obvious nods to the hits of yesteryear with expensive-sounding vocal samples of Beyoncé’s “Yes” (on Walker’s “No”), Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby” (on “Baby” with Chris Brown), Bobby Womack’s “I Wish He Didn’t Trust Me So Much” (on “Get Yo Boy” with 21 Savage), and Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway’s “The Closer I Get to You” (on “Baller” with Monaleo, GloRilla and Sexyy Red). More satisfying than these moments, though, are the production flourishes that distinctly hearken back R&B classics without outright imitating them. When the guitar on “Number One,” with Brent Fiayaz, is tinny and tight, it evokes Monica’s “Angel of Mine” from 1998. When it reverbs cautiously on “Stitch Me Up,” Beyonce’s “Dangerously in Love” comes to mind. Across the album, delicate chimes, gritty shakers, and orchestral strings radiate like the softened glow of old music videos.

Walker deliciously samples new genres here too. She delicately raps alongside Latto and Doja Cat on the hip-hop soul jam “Go Girl.”  “Situationship,” feels like bright indie rock. She channels SZA’s “Nobody Gets Me”-esque pop balladeering on “FMT.” Most impressively, Walker takes on country and reminds you its the progeny of her R&B forefathers on “Allegedly” with Teddy Swims, a track that could have been nestled right into Cowboy Carter (and was, in fact, co-written and performed by Dave Hamlin, one of the musicians behind a handful of songs from Beyonce’s Grammy-winning ode to reclamation).

Walker’s outlook on love isn’t really what’s new on Finally Over It. For every anthem of empowerment like “Go Girl” and “No,” she’s somewhere else putting up with less than she deserves, like a man whose best friend would be a better suitor on “Get Yo Boy.” She still puts the blues in R&B here, and a bolder change of subject matter would be a welcome evolution. No, it’s the way Summer Walker surveys her genre and everything it touches that feels most like the lover girl’s new lease on life.

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