Kid Sister – Ultraviolet (2009) [Dowtown] // Grade: B+

Early reviews of Kid Sister’s Ultraviolet have begun to pop up around the internet and some reviewers surprisingly seem dismissive of her long-awaited debut release. Those claiming it’s not a serious album, or the lyrics lack substance, are trying to force the young Chicago hip-hop starlet into the title of prolific female rapper, when she just wants to show everyone a good time.

First and foremost, Ultraviolet is not a hip-hop album, and those expecting that will be sorely let down. But if you ever played the board game Heart Throb, or knew all the dance moves to Bobby Brown’s “Every Little Step”, or soundtracked your formative years with SWV, MC Lyte and Soul For Real, then you already understand Kid Sister and will feel a strong kinship with the heavily 90s R&B, pop and house influenced Ultraviolet. As you might suspect from her previous one-off hits like “Beeper” and “Damn Girl”, Ultraviolet is a hook-filled party album aimed at the dancefloor, but it should not be lumped into soulless music to get drunk to. Kid Sister pulls in a roster of cameos that includes A-list musicians Kanye, Estelle and Cee-Lo on vocals, while remaining unconceited by drawing from a local pool of Chicago talent and introducing the greater world to the production force that is Gantman.

Kid Sister achieves with Ultraviolet what I think is often a difficult triumph for artists working under the loose umbrella of pop—personality and approachability. The Gantman-produced “Switchboard” pays homage to stylistic genre of juke native to Chicago. “54321″, a track with comparatively weak rhymes, becomes one of my album favorites with a nod to freestyle running throughout the chorus. “You Ain’t Really Down” culls from the same era, a wildly unexpected 90s R&B meets house diva vocal singalong.

At first “Right Hand Hi” and the Cee-Lo featured “Daydreaming” both felt too much like current MTV pop fodder, but then I took a second listen and got it. Ultraviolet is a personal journey through all the music that Melisa Young (Kid Sister) has ever loved, past, present and wrapped up in a package of 12 tracks, presented to listeners as the future. A title change and a comical number of release date pushbacks later, Kid Sister’s Ultraviolet is painfully fun, pleasantly refreshing and well worth the wait.