ELLA MAI - Do You Still Love Me?

Speaking in numbers, the anglophone r&b landscape has certainly undergone a powerful SZA-fication in recent times – impossible not to notice her influence on any themed playlist or among the ranks of a regiment of singers devoted to recycling this soft, anodyne style, sung "in cursive" as the kids online like to say. And yet, before SZA and the clamour that greeted "Ctrl" and the streaming explosion of "SOS", there was London's own Ella Mai Howell; it was 2017 when "Boo'd Up" and "Trip", two singles lifted from the Ep "Ready", took off on both sides of the Atlantic, cementing themselves as small but pervasive generational anthems for millions of teenage girls. A gentle songwriter with a soft, ever-controlled voice, Ella already relied back then on a cool, detached presence distinctly made-in-UK, in the tradition of Des'ree, Caron Wheeler, Gabrielle and Shaznay Lewis, wrapped however in a modern digital haze of keyboards and trap snares.

Almost a decade later, Ella is still active, and with "Do You Still Love Me?", her third album, released through Dj Mustard's label with the producer himself also behind the boards, she carries on down her own path as if nothing had happened out there in the meantime. A winning strategy? Depends.

It's impossible not to notice a certain care put into these fourteen tracks of velvety, confessional r&b, sung by Ella with the attitude of an older sister who's already seen it all – there's an elegant thread of piano and strings on "There Goes My Heart", then two quietly effective singles like "100" and "Little Things", the muffled bass throbs of "Outside" and the interpolation of an old Destiny's Child hit on "Tell Her", the latter track capturing the songwriter's lyrical essence better than any other.

But across three-quarters of an hour, the listen dwells on a wearying succession of mid-tempo ballads, without a single jolt or standout moment above the average. "My Mind", "Somebody's Son", "Bonus", "Might Just", "Chasing Circles" and the brief gospel touch of closer "No Angels" are all variations on the same melodic-production template, with Ella delivering performances that never really give anything extra.

Sure, we live in somewhat cynical and distracted social times, but to carry an album as slow and monochromatic as "Do You Still Love Me?" you'd at least need an intriguing public profile, like SZA's, or indeed Teyana Taylor's, the latter having already wisely reinvented herself as an actress. She, on the other hand, keeps a low-key life far from the tabloids, which surely does her good - in 2024 she had her first child with her partner Jayson Tatum, the NBA player - but the fact remains that curiosity is in short supply if the pen in the studio keeps writing the same old things.

It's no coincidence, then, that despite an album still "on trend," Ella Mai and her tales of everyday life have slipped back into the industry's second tier. The distracted listener might think they're facing yet another SZA imitation, because - regardless of who got there first - the soup still refuses to change flavour. We could also talk about Amber Mark, perhaps a more fitting reference point for describing "Do You Still Love Me?", if we really want to insist on the idea of dense, velvety production - but the fact is that even she fails to break through beyond her core audience, proof certainly of a tough market, but also of a lack of imagination that unfortunately fails to win over even the independent critics.

Before all of them, in fact, there was Jhené Aiko, who released "Souled Out" in 2014, still one of the finest examples of this strand of female R&B thanks to a rare and unmatched balance between melody and electronic textures. With an elegant but overly cautious hand, Ella Mai is currently just repeating herself, and it's hard to find yourself falling in love again.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

11/02/2026