Love Letter (2011)
A return to old school fanfare seems to be the wisest decision for R. Kelly after Untitled, his ninth studio album, went nowhere fast. Hoping to regroup and reclaim his prominence in R&B, Kelly presents himself as a smooth talking gentleman on Love Letter, a homage dominated with classic ‘60s and ‘70s soul. The album […]
Southern Comfort (2011)
With her wise and winsome vocals, assuredness and eclecticism, Nia Devine is a performer who embraces her uniqueness and wears it like a badge of honor. Both a solo artist and a front woman for Ft. Lauderdale FL’s resident ska-flavored band, The Methodaires, Ms. Devine displays just how bewitching she can be on her brief, […]
What’s Going On…Still… (2011)
A song like “What’s Going On” resonated even in a time of relative peace. America wasn’t involved in a shooting war in a foreign land in the 1980s and 90s that could be compared to the Vietnam War that Marvin Gaye sang about on his masterpiece. Instead, the war had been transferred to the streets […]
Church On The Moon (2011)
Futuristic, funkdafied and full of praise and worship: if you have a hard time connecting those adjectives with sanctified music, then perhaps you’ve never heard the phenomenal Deitrick Haddon. Ever since his professional debut in the 1995 with The Voices of Unity, the 37-year-old Detroit native has taken his elastic vocal range and enthusiastically-eclectic production […]
Soul Kittens Cabaret (Fantasia, Faith Evans) (2011)
Big hopes, bright dreams and the lures of fame and success, with seven women’s personal and professional lives hanging precariously in the balance. Making it in the Big City has never been easy, and at this establishment, there’s just as much drama behind the scenes as there is in the spotlight throughout this ambitious, yet awkwardly-executed stage play. […]
The Story (2011)
“Giving It Up” and “Times Are Hard” are by no means the only two good songs on Lenora Jaye’s new album, The Story, an album with a lot to like. But I found both of these songs compelling for similar, but somewhat hidden reasons: On the surface, the two tunes have nothing in common. The former tells the […]
A Night In Monte-Carlo (2011)
Marcus Miller is one of those artists who many listeners hear but often don’t see. Luther Vandross fans heard Miller when the bassist worked with the late soul legend in the 1980s. Fans of cinema heard Miller’s rumbling bass lines on the theme to the movies Boomerang and Skool Daze. Jazz-fusion adherents likely have the most knowledge […]
Funky Mission (2011)
Since the inception of Soul Unsigned Records in 2008, Phil Driver has dedicated many hours to find the next soul music talent from all over the world – even in the less unlikely places. Funk’N’Stein, the brainchild of lead vocalist Elran Dekel and Guri Alfi (who left to pursue another career), possesses the spirit of […]
Interim (2010)
Interim (noun): The intervening time. Interim is also the name of Julie Dexter’s new EP. That title is an appropriate name for an EP, since an extended play CD usually features a sampling of music likely to appear on an artist’s upcoming full-length album. So an EP like Interim will give the legion of Dexter […]
Take Me To Your Heaven (Reissue) (2011)
At a time in the early 80s when Urban Adult Contemporary music was just coming into its own with “brown eyed pop” singers like Lionel Richie and Atlantic Starr trying to bridge R&B and top 40 radio with soft, slightly soulful pop songs, singer and guitarist Stevie Woods issued a string of albums featuring a plethora of easy-to-digest songs […]
