Tymee has finally released what could be called an actual attempt at a comeback in “Cinderella” after what seems like forever away from the game, even factoring in her turn on ‘Unpretty Rapstar‘.

The instrumental has a constant sax that does feel a bit dated at this point in time, but it still works well enough to make the song easy to groove to and I’m just grateful that the underlying beat actually does something. While there’s no real hook, the instrumental is sufficient enough in this case to carry it, though as more of a pop track I’m not sure if it was necessarily the right decision.

Tymee is in her comfort mode when she’s using her normal voice while rapping, so thankfully she’s not doing the faux cute ironic rapping anymore and has settled into using her deeper tone correctly. The dexerity in her delivery allows her to experiment a lot with different flows because basically everything’s within her range, and she does well to showcase her abilities on this track. During the track I was hoping that she’d use her rapid-fire style at some point, and she showcased that toward the end to great effect as it was an effective switch.

“Cinderella” is sort of odd in the sense that it struck me as more what I expected out of HyunA (or CL). It’s a sexy bad girl concept with a poppy instrumental at the core, except the person performing it can actually sufficiently execute the rapping requirements, so it ends up working out.

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The music video is more of a mixed bag, because for all the benefits of having an actual rapper doing a rap track, Tymee does give a lot of that back in the visual aspect.

Granted, it’s not the visual that’s the problem here, as Tymee looks as good as she ever have by making the hair color work and rocking a “Something” era Yura bodysuit outfit.

See, that’s all fine. Where she concedes serious ground to the likes of HyunA and/or CL is in the performance aspect, even in the music video. A lot of the expressions seem tentative, and the choreography in particular detracts from the experience rather than adds to it. Tymee was selling the concept perfectly fine without the dancing bits, and taking her out of her comfort zone with that was a mistake.

At least they momentarily took advantage of the consistent Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde aspect of Tymee, with the baby face contrasting with what actually comes out of her mouth.

All in all, Tymee’s comeback with “Cinderella” can be marked down as a success. Even though it’s flawed in various ways, the strengths outweigh the weaknesses and offer a promising vision of her potential going forward. If anything, the main concern is that she’s waited too long to release this and wasn’t opportunistic enough.