That's not to say Southern Hummingbird isn't steeped in a modern R&B dynamic, but Tweet's definitely looking backward to go forward. "Best Friend" (with Bilal on backing vocals) and "My Place" are organic slow jams cut straight from Gladys Knight's cloth. "Beautiful" and "Smoking Cigarettes" should surprise most people looking for the album's requisite club tracks; they're quiet, slow-burning odes to falling in and out of love that will sound out of this era to Gen Y hip-hoppers. ("Motel" seems like, of all things, urbanized Joan Baez).

Strangely, the album's few obligatory uptempo cuts -- the disco vibe of "Boogie 2 Nite" and Elliott's tacked-on bonus cut, "Big Spender" -- never catch fire, which ironically does more to suggest her precocious strengths as a songwriter than a hidden weakness shielded by the strength of mentors/production gurus.