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| Jamila Woods |
"Lizzo stormed the world's hearts and playlists in 2019 with her breakthrough, 'Cuz I Love You,' while debuts from Steve Lacy, Los Coast, and Devin Morrison sat nicely alongside albums from established R&B figures like Raphael Saadiq, Lee Fields, and Rahsaan Patterson."
Jamila Woods - MUDDY from LEGACY! LEGACY!
Jamila Woods conceptualized her second solo album after an exercise she presented to her poetry class at Young Chicago Authors. The students were assigned to choose a poem and "cover" it, as Woods terms it, by putting their individual spin on it. Woods took part with Nikki Giovanni's "Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)," and was then asked by YCA artistic director Kevin Coval to do the same with a piece he wrote about Muddy Waters. This evolved into LEGACY! LEGACY!...
Lee Fields & the Expressions - Love Prisoner from It Rains Love
He first made his name as a James Brown-inspired soul shouter in the '70s, but since Lee Fields became one of the leading figures on the retro-soul scene in the 2000s, he's subtly been evolving into a more nuanced performer, one who can still sing with grit and force but also brings the heart and passion of a Bobby Womack or a Wilson Pickett to his material. 2019's It Rains Love shows just how good Fields has gotten at putting a thoughtful lover's heart behind the expressive fire of his delivery, and it ranks with his best work, a combination of great songs and sterling performances that bring out their best qualities... Producer and bandleader Leon Michaels has given this album a rich, natural sound that flatters Fields and his accompanists equally well (especially the peerless rhythm section of Nick Movshon on bass and Homer Steinweiss on drums). Not many artists who made their first record in 1969 can honestly be said to be working at the top of their game 50 years later, but Lee Fields is that rare example of a singer who has learned a lot about music over the course of his career while still having the vocal chops to put that knowledge to good use. It Rains Love is a master class in the art of modern soul music from an artist who only gets better and wiser as he matures.
Mavis Staples - Slippery People (Taling Heads) from Live in London
Not counting I'll Take You There: An All-Star Concert Celebration, Live in London is Mavis Staples' first live album since 2008's Live: Hope at the Hideout. Since that Chicago date, Staples has made four remarkable studio LPs -- three with Jeff Tweedy, one with M. Ward -- that sensibly form the basis of this, drawn from a two-night stand at Islington's Union Chapel. Her cracking band features many of the players heard on the Chicago recording, and they still bear some likeness to either the spectral or approaching chooglin' modes of Creedence Clearwater Revival...
Lizzo - Crybaby from Cuz I Love You
Since her indie days, Lizzo has been a distinctive and multi-talented artist capable of blending rap, soul, pop, and her classical training with positive messages and a sharp sense of humor. On her major-label debut Cuz I Love You, she takes all of these strengths to the next level, and the results are her most consistent, and consistently joyous, set of songs yet. Working with a creative team that includes producer Ricky Reed -- with whom Lizzo connected shortly after releasing her second album, Big Grrrl Small World -- she continues to embrace her gospel roots and the full power of her voice... Fueled by megawatt energy that never lets up, Cuz I Love You is a triumphant showcase for every part of Lizzo's talent, physicality, and sexuality.
Allen Stone - Back to the Swing from Building Balance
... On 2019's aptly titled Building Balance, Stone splits the difference between his organic first two albums and the more sonically vibrant Radius, offering a set of hooky tracks that make the most of his charismatic vocal presence. Whereas last time he worked with Swedish producer Tingsek, here he primarily worked with Britain's Jamie Lidell, who brings his own neo-soul skills to bear, producing and co-writing a handful of songs. Also adding to the album's soulful production are Jeremy Most, Nasri Atweh, and Jeff Gitelman, who each earn co-writing and production credits...
Anderson .Paak - Twilight from Ventura
Still climbing in 2019, Anderson .Paak won a Best Rap Performance Grammy award for "Bubblin" and returned in April with Ventura, at which point his preceding Oxnard wasn't even six months old. Although Oxnard and Ventura were laid down during the same sessions, the latter is neither leftovers nor a patchwork of adequate material that didn't fit on the former. Rather remarkably, it's the self-termed rap singer's tightest and most concentrated album yet. There's no space allowed for interlude hijinks or wayward diversions. Moreover, R&B is favored to such an extent that Paak delivers what could be called host verses on only a couple tracks... It's unmistakably in the tradition of soul and funk older than the artist himself, but could not have been made any earlier than the late 2010s.
Carlton Jumel Smith - You Gonna Need Me from 1634 Lexington Avenue
...1634 Lexington Avenue is his debut long-player for Finland's premier indie soul label, Timmion, and his first full-length since 2008. The title reflects Smith's childhood address. He is backed by Helsinki's Cold Diamond & Mink, Timmion's production team and studio band led by guitarist/organist Seppo Salmi, bassist Sami Kantelinen, and drummer Jukka Sarapää. The horn section includes arranger/trumpeter Jukka Eskola, Pope Puolitaival on baritone sax, and global jazz-funk saxophonist Jimi Tenor, with Janne Auvinen on congas and Tuomo Prättälä on organ, piano, and background vocals filling... While Smith claims Brown as his biggest influence, it's obvious he also reveres the sounds of Memphis' Hi-Records and Stax, Detroit's Motown, and Chicago's Curtom... "You Gonna Need Me," is possessed by a Memphis vibe, drenched in Smith's sweet baritone that weds gospel, soul, and blues in its grain.
Devin Morrison feat. Joyce Wrice - With You from Bussin'
Bussin' is not a long-shelved project from the singer you swear you caught on the Rhythm of Love tour or maybe did that Shazam-stumping cut you heard between Horace Brown's "One for the Money" and Groove Theory's "Tell Me." Contrary to its look and sound, it's the debut of an Orlando outlier who somehow seems both out of time and of the moment in 2019. Devin Morrison writes, arranges, and produces all his material with a novel aptitude for refashioning late-'80s/'90s modes that pre-date Timbaland and Missy Elliott's twitch-and-jab dominance...
Mahalia - Karma from LOVE AND COMPROMISE
Mahalia's accounts of opposing and moving past unsuitable male behavior, seeing beyond her faults and persuasively bigging-up herself, are distinct and flow as freely as the hooks that embellish them. No matter how detailed the productions get, they don't obstruct the vocals, which are consistently dynamic without being showy. Going by the natural charm of the album and the fun Mahalia seemed to have in making it she might only be getting started...
Sudan Archives - Black Vivaldi Sonata from Athena
...The result is her freest, richest, most accomplished work. In a way, the naked image of the artist on the cover undersells her artistry; a mike, a pen, and a pad belong beside her just as much as her raised violin. Parks' strings do slice through and spring across the rhythms, and are sometimes plucked to hypnotic effect, in each method distinguishing the album from any other recording that can be loosely classified as alternative R&B (or the artist's own tag, fiddle funk)...
Los Coast - Shadow Work from Samsara
The debut long-player from the eclectic Austin-based combo, Samsara delivers a rich and hip-shaking amalgam of pop, soul, R&B, funk, gospel, and psychedelic rock. An assured effort, especially for an inaugural release, the 13-track set bristles with intent, yet plays with its quarry like a bored house cat...
Michael Kiwanuka - Rolling from Kiwanuka
...Born to Ugandan parents who fled during Idi Amin's reign of terror and settled in Muswell Hill, Kiwanuka has had to fight to keep his identity at the forefront of the culture; numerous record execs tried to get him to dump his birth name for one easier to market, resulting in such a crisis of self-confidence that he shelved an earlier album called Night Songs, recorded as the initial follow-up to Home Again, so he could decide if he even wanted to continue pursuing a musical vocation. This third album wears its self-titling as a badge of honor, a statement of who Michael Kiwanuka as artist and individual is. Once more produced by Danger Mouse and Inflo, this 13-song set is a brave, colorful collection that provides an exceptionally well-rounded aural portrait of Kiwanuka's massive and diverse talent. If one had to choose a genre umbrella for this release, the term "21st century psychedelic soul" would fit better than anything else...
Nick Waterhouse - Nick Waterhouse
...The singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer receives sympathetic co-production from Paul Butler, known most for work with Michael Kiwanuka and St. Paul & the Broken Bones, while his support comes from a mix of sure-handed musicians familiar and new to his sessions, plus vital longtime backing vocalists Roberta Freeman and Carol Hatchett. It's all true to the scholar's past work, remaining in that throwback mode connecting variants of '50s and '60s R&B with a little energy from garage rock -- as played in an orderly, climate-controlled garage with enough room to fit a band and a horn section, but a garage nonetheless. Waterhouse's approach here is as painstaking as ever, and the writing is on par with the best across his discography. What puts this set over the top is his performances, which are more spirited and less mannered, consequently less like those of an entertainer...
Rahsaan Patterson - Heroes & Gods from Heroes & Gods
There's never a bad time for a new Rahsaan Patterson album, but 2019 is uniquely appropriate, as it's the singer's 35th year in the entertainment industry. Moreover, the release of Patterson's last proper LP is creeping toward its eighth anniversary, consequently his longest period of silence by far. Patterson seemed to be touring for most of the break, however, and presumably spent a good amount of time sketching and sharpening the material that makes up Heroes & Gods. Like his two most recent albums, Bleuphoria and Wines & Spirits, it communicates many emotions relating to intimacy and continually switches up sounds, like a lovingly personalized 60-minute mixtape that prioritizes quality over flow. Working most frequently with Jamey Jaz and Derrick Walker, both of whom have been supporting him for over 20 years, Patterson references bygone eras crossing several decades while twisting contemporary sounds, grounded as ever in gospel and soul, and throws in a couple of stylistic curveballs...
Raphael Saadiq - This World is Drunk from Jimmy Lee
Raphael Saadiq is known above all for the bounty of stirring love songs and lively jams he has made for himself and others since the late '80s. Less recognized are his tales of tragic figures struggling to make ends meet as their egos and vices respectively trip out and take hold, despite his breakthrough with one, Tony! Toni! Toné!'s "Little Walter," and a Grammy nomination for another, "Good Man." Saadiq's first LP since the latter hit takes the conflicted narratives to a higher level that is more concentrated and personal. Jimmy Lee is titled after an older brother he idolized -- one of four siblings he has lost to tragedy... From its inspiration to its supporting cast, this is a family affair; nephew Dylan Wiggins is among several additional keyboardists, and uncle Reverend E. Baker provides a joyous testimonial. The brothers and sisters in arms, longtime partners (Thomas McElroy, Taura Stinson) and new associates (Brook D'Leau, Daniel Crawford) alike, play in service to the vision of one eminent artist, helping him convert grief to artistic brilliance.
Sault - Masterpiece from 5
This troop showed up anonymously and without notice in February 2019. First was "We Are the Sun," a sugared and easy-rocking declaration of pride and resolve from what sounded like a small instrumental combo and a multi-gender group of vocalists warming up at first light. They returned four weeks later with "Don't Waste My Time," suggesting they were buzzed on an eruptive mix of funk-loving post-punk bands such as Rip Rig + Panic and Maximum Joy, '70s Nigerian rock nuggets, and much indignation. Clues were in the songwriting and production metadata of these tracks, crediting Dean Josiah Cover, known as the Ivor Novello Award-winning Inflo, and Melisa Young, aka the BET Awards-nominated Kid Sister... and in "Masterpiece" craft a tear-jerking devotional ballad that's ghostlier than anything out of Adrian Younge's Linear Labs. Released on the independent label Forever Living Originals, presumably an Inflo undertaking, 5 comes off like the result of one supercharged marathon session unburdened by commercial pressure.
Solange - Down With the Clique from When I Get Home
Unfazed by having to follow a landmark album that crowned the Billboard 200, went gold, and yielded a hit that took a Grammy, Solange leisurely detours with When I Get Home. Made in spots as remote as Los Angeles and Jamaica, the follow-up to A Seat at the Table was also recorded in New Orleans and Solange's native Houston. Most pertinent is the last location, referenced repeatedly in expressions of nostalgia, pride, and tranquility, as well as in titular geographic markers. Moreover, the spirit of DJ Screw, Houstonian developer of the woozy and torpid sound perfectly termed "chopped and screwed," is often felt, even as a bountiful supply of synthesizer lines burble and wriggle like certain '70s moves made by George Duke, Stevie Wonder, and Space City's own Joe Sample...
Steve Lacy - Love 2 Fast from Apollo XXI
The majority of the Internet's Grammy-nominated 2015 album Ego Death was produced by the band's newest addition, a high schooler named Steve Lacy. Word about the guitar-favoring instrumentalist quickly spread... Apollo XXI, his first album, is a little more refined, advancing his lazing, heartfelt mix of soul and funk with minimal varnish and no evident fuss. The rhythms have a rudimentary, still-demo-like charm, ranging from a functional plod to a hyperactive twitch. Lacy's thin but ringing vocals, often in mid-wattage falsetto, are finely matched with his pleasingly reedy guitar tone, suggesting a lovestruck stupor and other vaguely altered states...
Tank and the Bangas - Smoke.Netflix.Chill. from Green Balloon
Two live EPs and a much larger studio recording budget later, the band truly arrive with Green Balloon. For Tank and the Bangas, the title symbolizes wealth, weed, inexperience, and celebration all at once. Ball indulges in some joyously materialistic wordplay but elsewhere alludes to money as a necessity for survival. She sings often of getting high while also feeling guilt about it. As she tries to keep it together, she feels overstimulated, loses track of time and belongings, and achieves blissful escape until a sense of inertia takes over...
Taylor McFerrin feat. Anna Wise - Memory Digital from Love's Last Chance
With his 2014 full-length debut Early Riser three years in the past, Taylor McFerrin joined R+R=Now, a formidable group instigated by fellow keyboardist, composer, and producer Robert Glasper. The swift recording process that yielded the sextet's Collagically Speaking motivated McFerrin to check his perfectionism as he worked on his second album. The resulting Love's Last Chance does evince a more direct step on a surface level. Pacific rhythms with squiggling synthesizers and casually bobbing basslines course through it, with not one flashback to the wrought, jagged edges and stammering patterns of Early Riser. There's a nearly equal increase in the musician's stylistic agility, typified by the moment when a teasingly short interlude evoking progressive '70s MPB like Azymuth sharply pivots to the Anna Wise duet "Memory Digital," mellow modern boogie that can slide between Keni Burke and Dām-Funk...
Velvet Negroni - CONFETTI from Neon Brown
Before the release of his official debut album, Velvet Negroni's Jeremy Nutzman had already toured with Bon Iver and scored a writing credit on Kanye West and Kid Cudi's collaboration Kids See Ghosts. On Neon Brown, Nutzman lives up to the high expectations generated by these accomplishments while building on R&B at its moodiest and most experimental. Joined by co-producers Psymun and Tickle Torture -- who's also worked with Young Thug and Juice WRLD -- Nutzman creates a sonic space that's connected to, but distinct from, the spectral futurism of Tri Angle's roster of artists as well as the chart-topping R&B and hip-hop of the late 2010s... and switches things up again on "Confetti," a deep, saxophone-laden dive into the starkness of his 2017 mixtape T.C.O.D. that's one of the album's loveliest and loneliest moments.
Zo! feat. Eric Roberson, Carmen Rodgers - Love Up from FourFront
Lorenzo Ferguson keeps to his triennial +FE Music release schedule with his fourth album for the label, issued after a documentary about the third one, other original music for film and television -- including pitch-perfect contributions to the satirical Sherman's Showcase -- and abundant collaborative work. From the title all the way down, FourFront has a composition like that of SunStorm, ManMade, and SkyBreak. Decked out with feel-good love and it-could-be-love songs tidily arranged over a sturdy post-disco/pre-new jack swing foundation, it similarly features a shifting cast of guest vocalists known and new to Zo! sessions. Among the familiar, most prominent is touring partner Carmen Rodgers on two highlights that sparkle...
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