Case Study 01 by Daniel Caesar: A review

CASE STUDY 01 by Daniel Caesar: A review 

CASE STUDY 01, Daniel Caesar’s sophomore album was released on the 28th of June 2019. The R&B album features artists such as Brandy, Pharrell Williams, Sean Leon and John Mayer. In this project, the neo-soul singer strays from his usual gospel-like songs to provide listeners with more romantic and soothing tones. Caesar has stated before that he is a religious and spiritual person and religion has been a very prominent theme in his music up until this point. Nonetheless, the Toronto native had not lost his gentle soulfulness which is translated through his music beautifully.  

While Caesar’s signature sounds are still present in this album, he seems to experiment musically on this album. The singer teases fans with reggae on CYANIDE and provides a new sound on FRONTAL LOBE MUZIK with synths and auto-tune. Along with his usual themes of love and sex, themes of drugs, chaos and science are introduced in this project. Much like others’ works, an artist’s experimentation can sometimes be their downfall. CASE STUDY 01’s experimental songs make it less cohesive than Freudian (Daniel Caesar’s debut studio album) and its predecessors. This album lacks the ability to keep the same vibe from song to song making it feel more like a collection of songs than a curation of songs. However, the lack of consistency in the album could be representative of the disorderly controversy that Caesar faced earlier this year. 

In March 2019 an intoxicated Caesar live streamed himself on Instagram defending Julieanna ‘YesJulz’ Goddard. Goddard had been accused of racism and cultural appropriation due to her disrespect towards African Americans and more specifically, Black women. When the ‘Snapchat Star’ came under fire in Early 2019 for her insensitive comments, Caesar came to her defense. Many of Daniel Caesar’s fans were upset by him, a Black man, supporting what many believe to be a racist and a ‘culture vulture’. Caesar even went as far as to say that Black people were “being so mean to White people” he later said that Black people were too sensitive. These comments were not received with positivity and thanks to 2019 twitter ‘cancel culture’ Caesar lost many fans due to their refusal to support such a character.  

Generally, in comparison to the other projects that I have heard from him, it is not his best piece of work. It is understandable that it would have been very difficult for him to maintain the level of success that he gained from Freudian. Personally, I think Praise Break is his best project. It is one of my favourite EPs and it is hard to beat. I can see that on his latest project, Caesar was attempting to be more experimental but the lack of cohesion in the album is a bit of a deal breaker. This almost makes the album feel like a playlist which is not necessarily a bad thing but when it has been released as an ‘album’, it makes a difference. Other than the lack of cohesion, I like the new sounds and it will be nice to hear how Daniel Caesar takes these new themes and styles further in his music. 

My favourite songs from the album: 

ENTROPY 

LOVE AGAIN 

OPEN UP 

ARE YOU OK? 

RESTORE THE FEELING 

K. Iruwa