Rell - Long Time Coming (2005)

When his debut album for Roc-A-Fella Records, 'The Remedy', was cancelled, Wilbur Gerrell Gaddis, better known as Rell, renegotiated terms with label boss Jay-Z and started retooling the album for a future release on the label. However, when this too was later cancelled, he scrapped the work that he had done, and in 2004 started working on a new project, to be called 'Long Time Coming'. With a scheduled release date of May 2006, the buzz single 'Real Love' was released, but before long disagreements about lack of promotion from the label ended up with Rell's second album also being shelved, resulting in him leaving Roc-A-Fella Records. If you tried 'The Remedy' from the previous post and were intrigued enough to want to hear more, then here are the best the tracks that he recorded for his second abandoned album, which I've trimmed down from a rather unwieldy 70 minutes to a more concise 48-minute version of the unreleased 'Long Time Coming'.

Track listing

01 Back from Hiatus 
02 Don't Take It Away 
03 Real Love (Part 2) (feat. Kanye West & Consequence)
04 Saturday Love (duet with Nicole Wray)
05 Tear It Down
06 What's It All For... 
07 The Bizness
08 Real Love (Part 1) 
09 Last Ride
10 One Night (feat. Geda K. the Co-D)
11 Let Me Show U (feat. Nicole Wray)
12 U Ain't Let Me Down Yet 
13 Somehow, Someway
14 No Better Love (Remix) (feat. Young Gunz)

Rell - The Remedy (2002)

Wilbur Gerrell Gaddis, better known by his stage name Rell, was born on 22 July 1976 in Bowman, South Carolina. He signed to Roc-A-Fella Records in 1997, being the first male R&B singer to sign to New York City-based label, and he began work on his debut album which was tentatively titled, 'Medicine'. Rell got his break in 1998, appearing in Jay-Z's rap cult flick 'Streets Is Watching', and contributing the club banger 'Love For Free' to the movie's soundtrack. Within the latter part of 1998, he renamed his debut 'The Remedy', and re-released 'Love For Free' as the lead single. In 1999, two other singles, 'When Will U See' and 'Darlin'', were released as radio buzz singles for the album, but within the first quarter of that year 'The Remedy' was shelved due to the failed charting of the singles. Still signed to the Roc-A-Fella, he went on to sing hooks for nearly every one of the label's MC;s since, including Freeway's 'Victim Of The Ghetto' and appearing on 'The Message' featuring Mary J. Blige, from Dr. Dre's '2001'. In 2001, he met agreeable terms with Jay-Z, and began retooling his cancelled debut, and the project spawned a new and official lead single titled, 'If That's My Baby'. While the album was scheduled for a September release, after a second single, 'It's Obvious' was released, the album was re-scheduled to be released in spring 2002, but in early 2002 the reworked version of 'The Remedy' was shelved again. 

In 2004, Rell began work on yet another project, titled 'Long Time Coming', and for a promotion of the album, he released several leftover tracks from the cancelled 'The Remedy' project on numerous mixtapes and limited Roc-a-Fella EP samplers. In 2005 Rell released 'Real Love' as the lead single for 'Long Time Coming', but in the midst of the release, he was moved from the Roc-A-Fella label to Dame Dash Music Group, and under the new label, 'Long Time Coming' was scheduled to be released in May 2006. Unfortunately disagreements and lack of promotion from the new label ended up with Rell's second album being shelved, and he initially split from the label. In 2007, he appeared on collaborations with Latin reggaeton artists Don Omar and Zion, and he also wrote the title track for Usher's 2008 album 'Here I Stand'. In 2009, he teamed with Tre Williams to form 'The Revelations', who released their debut album, 'The Bleeding Edge', in October 2009, but Rell has yet to release an album under his own name, so to "remedy" that, here is the first of his shelved albums.

Track listing

01 If That's My Baby

02 Bring It On Home

03 Cloud 9

04 Get Up

05 Ghetto Stash

06 Never Knew A Love

07 Never Stop

08 Serious

09 Say It Ain't So

10 It's Obvious

11 The Reason

12 U And Me

13 When Will You See

14 Next Train