CD reviews 8/16: Kelly Rowland

The question of what would happen to Destiny's Child members when Beyoncé Knowles left has been resoundingly answered on several occasions by Rowland. The answer has been "Fine, just fine," especially since the soft R&B singer split from her manager (Beyoncé's dad) and her label (Beyoncé's Columbia) and turned some attention to electro and house. French dance-music producer David Guetta's 2009 smash "One Love," featuring Rowland's voice, was the gateway drug. After that, she was hooked on the Euro-disco sound, which gives "Here I Am" its flashiest moments.

Familiar as her past solo albums have been with syrupy slow jams and wifty hip-hop, a track like the steamy "Motivation," costarring nasty Lil Wayne, makes sense. So does the bippity-bopping "Lay It on Me" with MC Big Sean. There are a few out-and-out pop jams that Rowland executes with varying degrees of guts and grace. But it's the brash Euro-dance stuff on Here that's made her into Donna Summer's best successor with producers such as the whooshing Guetta ("Commander") and the crackling RedOne/Jimmy Joker/The WAV.s team ("Down for Whatever") playing Giorgio Moroder to Rowland's nu-disco diva.

Beyoncé had better beware. Rowland's got some hot stuff.

Just because "Ferrari Boyz" is a smaller proposition than Jay-Z and Kanye West's new "Watch the Trone," that doesn't make the Gucci Mane/Waka Flocka Flame collaboration a less cohesive album.

"Ferrari Boyz" is produced largely by Southside, who -- on the tracks "Mud Musik," "Suicide Homicide" and elsewhere -- manages a sound that's both melodic and militaristic, and who deploys piano to sinister effect on "Feed Me" and "PacMan."

Gucci Mane, recently released from prison for the umpteenth time, sounds no worse for wear here, managing impressive nimbleness with his mealy mouth. He has more gears than most rappers do, a versatile stylist with nothing so old-fashioned as a commitment to structure and the integrity of words. He prefers sounds. On "I Don't See U" he crams square words into round holes: "No I'm not a louwyyya/ Make your wife devoush yuh/ Pull up in a Powsha/ You can call it tauwcha." Got that?

For rappers as fluent in the mixtape circuit as these two, this major-label team-up feels slightly anti-climactic -- for premium Flocka, try the recent "DuFlocka Rant" mixtape. He isn't at his rowdiest here, which is to say he isn't at his best. And a coterie of second-stringers -- Slim Dunkin is the best, on "Too Loyal" -- often get in the way of the natural chemistry these two share: confident teacher/hyper student.