Amy Winehouse isn’t a hip-hop artist, but she comes from the hip-hop generation, and it shows in her music. Whether drowning her sorrows out in liquor over missing the Slick Rick gig (“Me and Mr Jones”), or enlisting Ghostface to rhyme on her “You Know I’m No Good” single, Amy Winehouse takes this rap shit serious, so to speak. With tastemakers like ?uestlove and DJ Jazzy Jeff championing her album, esteemed hip-hop producers Salaam Remi (Fugees) and Mark Ronson producing it, and NYC deep funk all-star Neal Sugarman of The Dap-Kings playing on it, Back To Black definitely has all the right names attached to it. But what exactly is it?

     In a nutshell, Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black is a modern tribute to 60′s soul, with a tinge of dancehall influence. It’s almost what Lauryn Hill attempted to accomplish with her single “Doo Wop”, but mixed with unabashed real talk. Winehouse doesn’t beat around the bush – she tells it like it is. However it’s done in such a subtle manner, with its retro sound accomplished perfectly, you barely notice that she is singing about her bad habits, like infidelity and alcoholism. Sure, she may not have a lot of class – constantly showing up in the British press for spats of public drunkenness and unruly behavior – however the honesty of her music explains why.   

      The title, Back To Black refers to her heavy, alcohol induced depression, with each song peeling away like layers of her personality like an onion. Like Portishead before her, Winehouse’s misery makes for incredibly interesting subject matter; such that listeners finding themselves in similar predicaments will relate. She almost makes a joke of her condition on the upbeat, catchy first single, “Rehab”, suggesting that she’ll be just fine as long as she’s got the company of a bottle with some Ray Charles and Donnie Hathaway records. The title track, “Back To Black”, instead shows the real side of her condition, suggesting that while her man will go back to his ex, she will go back to a state of blackness, or void.

     Songs about tainted lovers or broken relationships also stem from her bad behavior,  such as on “You Know I’m No Good”, (included here with regular and Ghostface remix versions), which bangs with snapping funk drums and the quacking sax of Neal Sugarman.  Here, she recounts a tale of being caught cheating by her man through, uh, carpet burns. “Love Is A Losing Game” finds Ms. Winehouse at rock bottom, in another bittersweet ballad, but the sun comes out shining on “Tears Dry On Their Own”, which interpolates a piece of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”.

     Aside from having a collection of great songs with highly addictive content, what really puts this album over the top is the production. Producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi – both best known for their contributions to hip-hop music – have flawlessly recreated the sound of yesteryear. Given the parties involved, it’s done in such a way, that your first thought is to assume it was all sampled. Samples do in fact appear on two songs (“Tears Dry On Their Own” and “He Can Only Hold Her”), but amazingly enough most all of the music is played live. The two producers tapped over forty musicians for the record – including Winehouse herself, to emulate the classic doo-wop soul sound.

     But this is nothing new – we’ve had throwback groups like Breakestra and Poets of Rhythm for a while now, but Amy Winehouse lends a persona to the sound. The songs are about her, making them as interesting sonically, as they are lyrically. Bottoms up.