His voice is a fairly generic high-pitched whiny male voice, not so distinguishable from, say, Mario’s (or Mario Winans’s). His lyrics are mostly bad-to-worse, full of in-da-club come-ons (“How did you get that in those jeans,” “Slow down, ‘cause that pretty round thing looks good to me,”), lines straight from the cliché factory (“Turn the lights down low,” “What goes around, comes back around”) and some that are just confusedly odd (The female protagonist of “Lights Down Low” is wearing a “low-cut thong.” As opposed to a high-cut thong?). Working against Valentino, however, are a number of factors. In his corner is the production team of Tim & Bob, blue-collar guys who can be relied upon to hammer out sturdy, if often unexciting, tracks (“Come Touch Me” has an urgent, tasty telegraphic beat). So it’s not as if Valentino’s launch comes without pressure. Case? Call for you on the white courtesy phone. The world of R&B is littered with the sad tales of hot single-leads-to-hot debut album male singers, who tend to get anywhere between one and two years before we ask, “what have you done for us lately?” The answer’s generally “not much,” and said debut albums often clog the racks at used-CD stores.

But now comes the real test: the debut album. With Valentino now nationwide, “Slow Down” ascended to the throne on Billboard’s R&B chart last week, capping an improbable success story. Thus, DTP’s first R&B album, Disturbing Tha Peace Presents Bobby Valentino. This led to a bidding war for the singer’s services, won by Ludacris’s Disturbing Tha Peace label. In classic music-biz fairy-tale fashion, that single, titled “Slow Down,” became an out-of-the-box smash on all of L.A.’s R&B and hip-hop stations. He then decided to get back into music, releasing an independent single to radio stations around his native Los Angeles at the end of 2004.

Emember Mista? They were one of myriad mid-to-late-‘90s male R&B quartets, most notable for Lil’ Kim referencing their minor R&B hit “Blackberry Molasses” in appalling fashion in her song “Dreams.” After breaking up-their sole album wasn’t much of a hit-Mista’s lead singer went to college, graduating in 2003.

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