搬運(yùn)自：微信公眾號(hào)【評(píng)論搬一堆】（在原文基礎(chǔ)上添加了英語原文與排版調(diào)整）

翻譯：Joonly EC

審譯：Ryan-Chopin

排版：Spencer-C

The pop star’s compilation features Cardi B, Chance the Rapper, and Stormzy in a sometimes nice but hopelessly transparent attempt at a hip-hop crossover.

這位流行巨星的全新大雜燴找來了新晉說唱女王Cardi B，嘻哈新星Chance The Rapper，以及英國(guó)說唱歌手Stormy助陣，這架勢(shì)都讓我誤以為專輯很棒了，誰知道這其實(shí)是這位先生對(duì)嘻哈赤裸裸地倒貼惹。

The?rumors?are confirmed:?Ed Sheeran?finally married his longtime girlfriend, Cherry Seaborn. In an?interview?with radio host Charlamagne tha God—really, an hour of small talk recorded at the studio of Sheeran’s countryside home in Suffolk and released alongside the album in lieu of any major press—Sheeran fills us in with blissful references to their life together. He’s ditched the good-natured, drunken shenanigans that once led to a scar on his cheek from the sword of an actual British royal in favor of nesting with the person he calls “his lady.” Please congratulate Ed Sheeran on his graduation to matrimony, to becoming an absolute?wife guy.

流言終得確認(rèn):黃老板總算和他相約戀愛長(zhǎng)跑的女友Cherry Seaborn結(jié)婚了。在一次和主持人Charlamagne tha God的電臺(tái)訪談中——一次在黃老板的英國(guó)沙?？丝h的住宅錄制的、僅有一個(gè)鐘頭的小訪談——黃老板釋出了自己新專輯——他居然沒有選擇主流媒體來增加此次活動(dòng)的曝光度。黃老板用他的歡樂婚后生活感染了我們，他拋棄了曾經(jīng)導(dǎo)致他臉頰上留下傷疤但沒有惡意且令人陶醉的惡作劇(上張專輯Divide的一個(gè)故事)，轉(zhuǎn)而與他所謂的“他的夫人”結(jié)婚了。那就請(qǐng)大家鼓掌恭喜這位終于結(jié)婚了的有婦之夫Ed Sheeran吧。

Therein lies the conceptual premise of the bulk of the guest-laden?No. 6 Collaborations Project. There’s “I Don’t Care,” an early single featuring?Justin Bieber?and maybe the best effort on?No.6, a vector of the dancehall-lite rhythms sounds Sheeran debuted on 2017’s “Shape of You.” Bieber, a fellow newlywed, shares in Sheeran’s swelling melodies and loving truisms: “I don't care when I'm with my baby, yeah/All the bad things disappear.” Then there’s “Cross Me,” featuring?Chance the Rapper?and a hook fashioned out of a sample of?PnB rock’s 2017?XXL?Freshman cypher, a well-meaning if slightly paternalistic ode to their respective partners.

結(jié)婚這件事兒應(yīng)該就是《No.6 Collaborattions Project》的概念前提了。“I Don 't Care(不在乎)”是他和Justin Bieber合作的先行單曲，黃老板可能只在這首歌上費(fèi)了丁點(diǎn)心思。Bieber也是剛結(jié)婚，他和Sheeran分享了不斷膨脹的旋律和愛的真諦:“我啥都不在乎，每當(dāng)和我的摯愛在一起時(shí)，是的/所有不好的事情都消失了?！比缓笫恰?/span>Cross Me(冒犯我)”，這歌與Chancethe Rapper合作，還采樣了一段來自PnB rock(美國(guó)說唱男歌手)在2017年的《XXL Freshman Cypher(嘻哈十佳新人麥克風(fēng)接力表演)》中的表演的副歌，這是一首雖然充滿好意但是類似爸媽說教的頌歌，目的也沒別的——秀恩愛而已。

But the change in Sheeran’s marital status has not inspired a shift away from the chip on his shoulder:?I’m not a cool guy, I’m a regular guy,?is the subtext of his career thus far.?No.6?opens with a heavy-handed,?Khalid-assisted reminder that he is not one of the “beautiful people,” a catchy calculation appropriate for the sad-pop dominating the charts. “Antisocial,” featuring?Travis Scott?and his signature skittering drums, begins with a bizarre instruction: “All you cool people, you Better leave now.”

但Sheeran婚姻狀況的改變并沒有讓他從肩上的壓力中解脫:我不是一個(gè)很酷的人，我是一個(gè)普通的人，這是迄今為止關(guān)于他職業(yè)生涯的潛臺(tái)詞?！禢o.6》以一首沉重的、帶有Khalid風(fēng)格的曲目開場(chǎng)，提醒大家他并不是美麗的人兒(專輯第一首曲目:“Beautiful People”)之一，這首歌雖然悲傷，但阿黃時(shí)刻沒有忘記他真正的任務(wù)——用抓耳的旋律去迎合市場(chǎng)?！?/span>Antisocial(反社會(huì))”以Travis Scott和他標(biāo)志性的打擊樂為特點(diǎn)，一開始就給出了一條奇怪的指令:“你們這些酷人，最好現(xiàn)在就離開?！?/span>

In an album defined mostly by banality, “South of the Border,” featuring?Camila Cabello?and?Cardi B, is an actual bizarre moment. It’s a Latin-pop fantasy—Sheeran sings of someone’s “caramel thighs” and “curly hair”—punctuated by Cardi’s suggestion that “Ed got a little jungle fever.” Huh? Maybe unintentionally, the raceplay points directly to the elephant in the room: Though he built his fame on confessional, earnest acoustic guitar songs, Ed Sheeran loves black music, and he wants you to know it.

在這張以平庸為特征的專輯中，Camila Cabello和Cardi B參與合作的“South of the Border(邊境以南)”確實(shí)是一個(gè)怪異的存在。這是拉丁流行音樂的幻想——Sheeran演唱了某人的“焦糖色的大腿”和“卷發(fā)”——中間穿插著卡迪的建議:“埃德有點(diǎn)叢林癖好”。蛤?也許是無意中，這張專輯里面的“種族游戲”可能只有瞎子能夠忽視:盡管黃老板以充滿懺悔的、認(rèn)真的原聲吉他歌曲成名，但現(xiàn)在，他想讓你知道他熱愛黑人音樂。

Unfortunately, on?No.6,?that appreciation largely manifests as the belief that he is a competent rapper. On one song, “Take Me Back to London” featuring?Stormzy, his flow bears a suspicious resemblance to “Bitch Better Have My Money”-era?Rihanna. (Sheeran has settled plagiarism lawsuits on?at least?three?occasions?and?will go to trial?on a fourth this September.) There, and elsewhere, his raps are cringey and simplistic, with all of the subtlety of a plot-driven song written by Lin Manuel Miranda: “It's that time/Big Mike and Teddy are on grime/I wanna try new things, they just want me to sing/Because nobody thinks I write rhymes.”

不幸的是，在《No.6》中，這種欣賞在很大程度上表現(xiàn)為誤以為他真的是說唱歌手。在一首和Stormzy合作的歌曲“Take Me Back to London(帶我回倫敦)”中，他的調(diào)調(diào)與Rihanna的“Bitch Better Have My Money(婊子還錢)”有可疑的相似之處。(黃老板已經(jīng)至少三次就抄襲訴訟達(dá)成和解，并將于今年9月第4次出庭受審。)不管是在他的歌曲中，還是任何一個(gè)nbcs的地方，他的說唱都是怯懦而簡(jiǎn)單的，帶有Lin Manuel Miranda以情節(jié)為主導(dǎo)的歌曲的所有微妙之處:“是時(shí)候/Big Mike和Teddy骯臟著呢/我想嘗試新事物了，他們只是想讓我唱出來/因?yàn)闆]人覺得我寫得押韻?！?/span>

Being a fan of rap doesn’t mean you can rap. I would never delude myself into thinking I could run a kitchen just because I’ve spent years watching “Chopped.” Alongside?50 Cent?and?Eminem, both way past their prime as rappers, Sheeran sounds even more out of his depth on “Remember the Name”: “Yeah, I was born a misfit, grew up 10 miles from the town of Ipswich/Wanted to make it big, I wished it to existence/I never was a sick kid, always dismissed quick/‘Stick to singing, stop rappin’,’ like it's Christmas.” Those unnamed haters were right and?No.6?confirms that Sheeran is Better off sticking within his skillset. “Feels,” which ingeniously unites?Young Thug?and?J Hus, and “Put It All On Me,” which offers?Ella Mai?a warm piano to shine over, are legitimately irresistible.

成為一個(gè)說唱迷不等于你就能夠說唱了。我雖然已看了好幾年的《Chopped(一檔美國(guó)廚藝真人秀)》，但不會(huì)因此騙自己:我已經(jīng)是一個(gè)大廚了。與50美分和阿姆,兩個(gè)已經(jīng)過氣了的說唱歌手一起合作,Sheeran聽起來更沒有水準(zhǔn)了，在“Remember the Name(記住我)”中，他這樣唱到:“是的,我出生得不好,方圓10英里的小鎮(zhèn)伊普斯維奇/我想要功成名就/我從來沒有一個(gè)生病的孩子,總是被快速辭退/堅(jiān)持唱歌,停止說唱,就像它是圣誕節(jié)一樣。”那些匿名的黑子們是對(duì)的，《No.6》證實(shí)了Sheeran最好還是老老實(shí)實(shí)唱小情歌，別來嘻哈這里瞎摻和了?！癋eels(感覺)”巧妙地將年輕的暴徒和J Hus結(jié)合在了一起，“Put It All On Me(都放在我身上)”則為Ella Mai提供了一架溫暖的鋼琴，讓她可以盡情地彈奏。

In a 2014?Vibe?cover story, in which a reporter witnessed him freestyle over beats including YG’s “My Nigga,” Sheeran was described as having a “hip-hop soul.” A couple years later, Stormzy, with whom Sheeran has something of a friendship, took it further. “Even with his rapping he can execute it well,” he told?GQ. It didn’t quite come out of nowhere. In the early days, he’d experimented with what a collaborator describes as “singing rap.” And in 2011, after independently releasing a handful of EPs in the style of alt-folk-rock singer-songwriter forbearers like Jason Mraz, he convinced grime greats like?Wiley?and?Jme?to participate in his?No.5 Collaborations?Project?album, after which?No.6?is modeled. Over the years, he’s performed multiple Nina Simone covers, recorded a song in the Ghanaian language of Twi, and told?Billboard?that Justin Timberlake, unparalleled in the cultural phenomenon of “blue-eyed soul,” was “pretty close to a direct inspiration.”

在2014年Vibe的封面故事中，一名記者目睹了他唱freestyle，其節(jié)奏還借用了YG的“My Nigga(我的老兄)”。幾年后，與Sheeran有些交情的Stormzy與他關(guān)系更近了。他告訴《GQ》雜志:“他能很好地完成自己的說唱。”說明了這張專輯還是策劃了一下的。在早期，他嘗試了一位合作者所說的“說唱演唱”。2011年，他像Jason Mraz那樣以另類民謠搖滾歌手兼作曲家的身份獨(dú)立發(fā)布了幾張ep，說服了Wiley和Jme等音樂人參與他的《No.5 CollaborationsProject》，這之后《No.6》也有了雛形。多年來，他翻唱了幾次Nina Simone，用加納語錄制了一首歌，還告訴Billboard，在“blue-eyed soul”這一文化現(xiàn)象中無與倫比的Justin Timberlake是他非常直接的靈感來源。

Nearly 8 years, 150 million albums sold, and dozens of arena-headlining tour dates after?No.5, he’s employed a similar ethos but with the expanded budget and superstar access of his status as one of the world’s best-selling artists. Like the original compilation project, much of?No 6.?is as bad in theory as it is in practice. Pop music has drawn from black cultural expression since the dawn of its existence, becoming increasingly absorbent in recent years. As hip-hop and diasporic genres like Afropop, dancehall, and dembow have framed the dominant modalities of contemporary radio, inspiration and appropriation have become business moves as much as artistic choices. But few releases have been as baldly transparent and destined for ubiquity as?No.6, which has all the conspicuous mining of a Drake album, but very little of the finesse or cultural fluency.

在《No.5》策劃之后的近8年時(shí)間里，他賣出了1.5億張專輯，并在數(shù)十場(chǎng)巡回演唱會(huì)中占據(jù)了頭條位置。他依舊采用了類似一層不變的風(fēng)格，更別說現(xiàn)在他的預(yù)算越來越多，而且他已然變成了全球最暢銷藝術(shù)家之一，成為了超級(jí)巨星。就像最初準(zhǔn)備的專輯一樣，《No.6》的大部分理論和實(shí)踐一樣糟糕。流行音樂自誕生之日起就從黑人文化中汲取靈感，黑人文化近年來愈發(fā)地受歡迎。隨著嘻哈音樂和黑人流行音樂、舞廳和dembow等散居音樂流派確立了當(dāng)代電臺(tái)流行的主導(dǎo)模式，音樂的鼓舞作用和對(duì)其經(jīng)典的挪用已成為一種商業(yè)行為，甚至是一種藝術(shù)選擇。但很少有專輯能像《No.6》那樣全專從頭采樣到尾?！禢o.6》擁有Drake專輯中所有引人注目的元素，但不可能有Drake那種技巧和他的文化流暢性。