Listen: Timbaland Protégé Breaks Out

Keri Hilson
"Energy"

She sang on "The Way I Are" and danced in a hypnotically hot fashion in Usher's "Love in This Club" video. She's Keri Hilson and, after nine years of writing for megastars like Chris Brown, the Pussycat Dolls and Britney, she's ready for her own solo turn. "Energy" is the first single from her delayed LP, In a Perfect World, and it follows the current can't-miss crunk ballad formula. The hit-making recipe essentially takes Lil Jon's classic pop sound and injects it with just the right amount of heavy-duty animal tranquilizers — a languid piano and some of the most massive synths since we've heard since T.I.'s "What You Know" transform "Energy" from a club banger into something much more epic and melodramatic. On it, Hilson is embroiled in a dangerous love — "I don't want us to be the end of me," goes one particularly eloquent, studio-perfect line. While critics drop dozens of positive adjectives in the name of recent writer-producer turned singer Santogold, Hilson is trying for the same trick — but instead of mere blog kudos, she's aiming for the upper reaches of the Billboard charts. If "Energy" is any indication, she should have little trouble making it there.