Ventura was supported by two singles: "King James" and "Make It Better". The album received widespread acclaim and debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200. It is Paak's first US top 10 album. The album won Best R&B Album at the 2020 Grammy Awards.
Background
In May 2018, Dr. Dre leaked the title to Paak's third album, Oxnard Ventura during an Instagram livestream. However, the title of his third album was later changed to Oxnard.[3] Paak has stated in interviews that Dre let him have more freedom with the production on Ventura, following the more tightly produced Oxnard. In a March 2019 interview for Esquire, he said, "[Dre] let me have a lot of leeway on Ventura. He was like, it seems like you got it. I spread my wings on the production and on the writing and on these collaborations".[4] The album was released on April 12, 2019, just six months after his last full-length album, Oxnard, which Paak wrote and recorded at the same time.[5]
Promotion
The album's lead single, "King James", was released on March 15, 2019. The song was produced by Callum and Kiefer.[6][7] The album's second single, "Make It Better" featuring Smokey Robinson, was released on April 4, 2019. The song was produced by Anderson .Paak, Fredwreck, and The Alchemist.[8][7]
Ventura was met with widespread critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 82, based on 19 reviews.[10] Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 7.5 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.[9]
Kitty Richardson of The Line of Best Fit gave a positive review, stating "With sumptuous harmonies and a live band locked in on every track, .Paak finds a sweet spot between throwback soul and the 21st Century dancefloor. He sounds like the best version of himself. ... An exceptional return to form".[14] Will Hermes from Rolling Stone stated, "Paak's output is keeping pace with his ambition. But good as his records have been, this set included, you still get a sense that the best work still lay ahead".[17]Alexis Petridis of The Guardian spoke on the album saying "Ventura sounds like the work of someone intent on fixing the flaws in its predecessor. Paak's tendency to supercharge the production for commercial appeal has been reined in. The sound centres around an appealingly stripped-down take on mid-70s Philly soul".[1] Jack Shepherd of The Independent also praised the album saying "Rather than being an album of Oxnard offshoots, Ventura instead borrows heavily from .Paak's consistently brilliant 2016 record Malibu, itself a fresh slice of soulful funk".[2] Jordan Bassett of NME called the album "a lush '70s soul-inflected record" commenting that "Last year's Oxnard referenced his childhood in the titular Los Angeles neighbourhood, while this latest album name-checks Ventura, the sun-kissed Californian coastal town in which, he's explained, he 'found [his] depth' as a teen".[15]
Exclaim! critic Ryan B. Patrick said, "It's a super-charged R&B record, laced with throwback Motown/Philly grooves, that hits hard but fails to land a knockout blow. It seems to be a case of not being able to fully satisfy the hip-hop heads, the R&B fans and the amorphous genre-less Venn diagram in between".[13] Sheldon Pearce of Pitchfork said, "This tune-up album, at the very least, restores the underlying feeling of his signature stuff. But there, too, lies its flaw: it's a hollow effort lacking in any real distinguishing characteristics. The album never becomes more than the sum of its sounds".[16]
Ventura debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, earning 55,000 album-equivalent units, of which 39,000 were pure album sales. It is Paak's first US top 10 album.[25]
