Ari Lennox ‘Vacancy’ Review: Playful, Sultry R&B That Masks a Yearning Soul

Ari Lennox’s music often nods to the past, but amid the rise of singers like Olivia Dean and Raye, the R&B singer’s third album, Vacancy, feels more in tune with the zeitgeist than 2022’s Age/Sex/Location. The album begins with the jazzy “Mobbin in DC,” its electric piano, trumpet, and rimshots reminiscent of the Soulquarians. But Lennox combines these neo-soul signifiers with more modern flourishes like beats dusted with pink noise and vocal loops like the chopped-n-screwed samples that close out “Twin Flame.”

Vacancy traverses a wide swath of eras. Lennox’s voice evokes that of Erykah Badu on tracks like “Soft Girl Era,” while the skittering drums on “24 Seconds” evoke Timbaland’s turn-of-the-century production style. Elsewhere, “Under the Moon” flips a doo-wop vocal sample and uses it as part of the backing track, becoming a continuous drone.

The album’s nostalgic vocals contrast with the lyrics’ occasionally grim imagery. “Make your bed six feet under/Hit it home like a Louisville slugger/I can play the game too, motherfucker,” Lennox quips on “Wake Up.” Songs like “Horoscope” and the title track trade in elaborate metaphors for sex: “Baby, I want you fill this vacancy/I want you to move in this space with me,” Lennox sings on the latter. By the time she gets to the line “Maybe you could use your tongue like a plug,” she stops bothering with the pretense.

There’s more to Vacancy, though, than double entendres. Yoga is used as a rather unabashed symbol for sexual positions on “Pretzel”—“Twist me and fold me, you’ll put me in a pretzel”—but the root of Lennox’s emptiness is emotional. “Horoscope” runs down a year’s worth of disappointments: “I had Taurus ghosting me…that boy put the hoe in horoscope.” The album’s deceptively laidback vocal performances and arrangements—even the click of a gun comes with a wink—betray an unresolved tension that emerges as one of Vacancy’s resonant themes.