Masego Needs a Minute and Kelela Needs Nine Years
Masego grieves on a studio deadline, Dawn Richard goes giddy with Durand Bernarr, and Kelela frees a song she’d kept in a drawer since 2016.
Welcome to the Soulpolitan weekly feature, where we highlight the R&B singles worth your time. As people who spend an unreasonable amount of time pressing play on things nobody asked us to press play on, this is our way of passing along the best of what we’re hearing—and occasionally arguing about, so you don’t have to sort through every New Music Friday playlist yourself.
This week self-ordered into an R&B summit. Over the course of a seven day sprint, a saxophonist wrestled grief between soundchecks and tour stops; a New Orleans shape-shifter was left shamefacedly caught on tape; a Florida crooner confessed his inability to know if his emotions are valid; a Georgia contralto made a demand not to be fought against as she exited a relationship; and an R&B vet finally unleashed a track she’d been sitting on since 2016. Five personalities, five varying entities, they’re desperately seeking a stay of execution for. These are the tracks that’ve been running through the head this week.
And Happy Father’s Day to active and hard-working Dads out there!
Masego, “Breathe”
Grief was once associated with a release, a special arrangement for the bereaved who were free to disintegrate unhindered for a while of their own choosing. This arrangement is no longer available to the majority of us. “Breathe,” a song from Masego, who declares it sprung from a profound loss, a death in the family that landed in the middle of a calendar already stacked with art meeting, a studio session, a flight, has it that. Over the time-waltz track, a “Can I breathe? Can I live?” he sings, “Can I grieve? Get a minute?” The verses keep it from going downhill and exploding as they remain in control on the surface. “This is rebirth, I’m baptized,” he concludes, then admits he nearly drowned. He sings about shocking news he learned last night, how he was all good last week and now he is awake at night evaluating how to save someone. His complaint is that work is keeping him from the attempt of mourning, which is a point he has made else where that the industry is not unionized. It is when “I just can’t stop, the world won’t stop” is all he can manage to chant that he comes out as a man who has been put on hold by his own life, a hand covering the receiver, as he waits for someone to pick up. We need more songs like this. —Imani Raven
Dawn Richard, “baby, can we? (feat. Durand Bernarr)”
Falling deeply in love with one of these records has almost always required you to do some homework. The ex-Danity Kane singer, who recently changed her dynamo identity to a New Orleans art-pop polymath, has again built another new world in her solo flying out just released a pair of hushed orchestral collaborations with composer Spencer Zahn that you could practically frame and hang. To hear the Dawn Richard so relaxed is a tiny shock. “baby, can we?” is simply a love song, and an ecstatic one, with no concept to decode and nothing to prove. Over a flexible New Orleans soul groove from Katalyst that interpolates Aretha Franklin’s “Day Dreaming,” she just gushes: “Hey, baby, and I’m thinking of you.”
Her duet partner is Durand Bernarr, the Cleveland vocalist who won this year’s Grammy for progressive R&B, and he is equally as stylish as her. They exchange lines about keeping the relationship under wraps, then immediately blow their own cover. They are boasting all over the place. “I want him in the A.M. like breakfast at McDonald’s,” Dawn sings, and there’s a “Feeling good, it’s alright with me, Janet” a few bars later, not to mention a boast about a man he managed to sing “Stay” like his first name was Bono. What makes it fun is the sheer magic of informing your friend of the new crush, whom they never asked you about. Richard has done more complicated music art and she will again. At the moment, her cheeks hurt from constantly smiling, and she wants to show off. —Jamila W.
Q, “hey there [i have a compulsive complex]”
One specific type of love song that I have particularly favored is the one where the singer seems to be more puzzled than confident, awkwardly and hesitantly trying to get a feeling across that he cannot quite guarantee. South Florida’s Q embodies that lack of clarity throughout the track “hey there [i have a compulsive complex],” and he divulges the issue in the very first seconds. He could answer you, “I can’t tell you for sure if it’s real,” he sings. A less talented writer would refer to that as a red flag. Q simply states that is a regular day for him. He would prefer you not to believe him at all. “Destroy my words,” he insists, “The proofs are in my actions.”
The suspicion of his own tongue stands in his way, surprisingly, even when he is trying to be honest. He confesses that he was not the best at it, and he also mentions that he matured later than he should have, he still was not therefore a novice at it, making mistakes live. “Fear of trying was the downfall of my passion,” he sings. Although Romil Hemnani of BROCKHAMPTON is present among the board crew, the main attraction here is the writing. The highlight moment occurs when Q allows his partner to make him right during the sentence. “I dive into your ocean floor,” he sings, “You say, Q, just slow roll, but here we go.” Told to back off by his partner, he dives anyway, the man who ends up swimming to the ocean bed on a first date and calling that pacing. His forthcoming album, which is also a question, DO YOU SEE ME?, is based on his own doubts, and in this context, he seems to think he is incapable of replying that one as well. —Asa McKenzie
Baby Rose, “Let Me Go”
Almost all break-up songs require a baddie. Okay, a villain. A person who is deceptive, dishonest, or leaves the scene and the singer is the one who feels wrong-ed and sings better. Baby Rose is the one who has written a break-up song where she is okay with the other person. Despite being based in Atlanta, she has a contralto voice, which is so low that it is almost considered a cello, and she is coming strong on “Let Me Go” as she is attempting to leave someone she does not dislike at all. “I really like you,” she brings it out in the open directly in the very first verse, “but not this time.” By the second she has self-talked her into the exeunt, “Maybe this is where I begin/I’m letting go of you, I’ll take that chance.” The chorus puts the weight back on the other person, asking them to prove the feeling by releasing her: “If you really love me/Then let me go.” Is this a prequel to “Go” or something?
The kindness cuts with a blade. In the bridge, she confesses to having been partly responsible, which she is frightened to speak of, “Tired of being let down by the both of us.” Putting her own name in with the disappointment is the move that most kiss-off songs never make. By the last verse, she has moved on from talking about him. “Heartbreak is the negative spin,” she muses, and then, “Time I give myself back all the love I can.” Baby Rose, who technically has just won her first Grammy for her work on Leon Thomas’s Mutt, created her album YEARNALISM based on the idea of desiring in every direction and now that this track is where the wanting goes inward, Baby Rose shows us a different aspect of herself. She said that all endings do not have to be disastrous, and this is the place where she gives evidence of it. —Kevin Matthews
Kelela, “outta time (feat. A. K. Paul)”
In geographical time is how the Paul brothers work. Jai Paul took more than 10 years between his unwitting debut album and an official follow-up recognizably famous, while his older bro A. K. Paul, who is also a music artist, is putting out songs at a rate that leaves glaciers in a cloud. Thus, it looks entirely appropriate to see A.K Paul in a collaboration that was Kelela’s unutilized asset for 9 years. She once again stated that the song “outta time” was written by her in 2016, during the production of Take Me Apart. She left the song untouched, until the time she built around it, in her words, a house that sounded more detailed. The house is Kelela’s new avatar, which is her upcoming album. What she kept in that drawer is a clock winding down. Kelela spends the track practically begging an already halfway out the door lover to reconsider, the chorus a stark summary of their dilemma (“We’re runnin’ out of time”). In the verses, the cool entirely evaporates, as she melts into the pleading “Baby, don’t you do this, you’re killin’ me,” before calcifying into wounded accusation (“You think that I’m blind, I can see through your lies”). A. K. Paul contributes guitar and backing vocals to the track’s other side, sings the obverse, their two voices interlacing in a circle of common terror. She penned all the lyrics in 2016, the period she was conceiving of Take Me Apart; and then locked them away until this spring. Now, almost ten years later, the desperation she so clearly feels in this early 2010s panic now arrives undiluted, a woman pleading just to gain an inch of ground while, at last, a drawer begins to open. —Charlotte Rochel
R&B, Soul, or Blues Albums to Check Out
The War and Treaty: The Story of Michael and Tanya
PJ Morton: Saturday Night, Sunday Morning
4Fargo: 4Fargo
Chlöe & Timbaland: Resurrection
Devin Morrison: SAKURA
Glenn Lewis: Overture
Ama: AMA
The Colleagues: Sincerely Yours: Songs in the Key of Love
Dylan Sinclair: Make You Feel
Kings Return: KRNB
Dreamer Isioma: Quantum Entanglement
Noxz: Safe to Be _
Karencici: Ignore
Lee Lewis: HOWL (EP)
MADELEINE: Earth Cry (EP)
Ruby Jackson: This Love Thing (EP)
Kashus Culpepper: Act I: Summer Nights (EP)
The 7:45s: Spin Off
BOY SODA: SOULSTAR DELUXE
Kyle Dion: SOULAR (Deluxe)
Other Songs to Check Out
Chaka Khan & Snoop Dogg: Boogie’s in My Soul
Syd: 2 Many Days
Elmiene: Comets + Gold (feat. Fujii Kaze)
Abby Jasmine: #NEEDTHAT
Felix Ames: I Was Just a Child
Eric Bellinger: Fatherhood
Ruth B.: Didn’t I
EJ Jones: Luh Mo’ Love
McClenney: Self Control
Durand Bernarr: You Gotta Be
Jai’Len Josey: I Wish I Didn’t Miss You
Tank: Daughter
KIRBY: B.O.B (Bombs Over Baghdad)
Nia Chennai: It’s Not Me (Don’t Worry, Darling)
Madison Ryann Ward: GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!
Dana Williams & sagun: Cycles / Old Friend
I Am Roze: Redo
Tniyah: Complicated
Binta: Sweet Sensation
Angelica Vila: Damaged
Jamal Roberts: Girl Dad
Kuzi Cee: GIA
Wé Ani: Burn That Bridge
Mamadou.: at peace with the mirror (demo)
Rene Bonét: Act Like You know
JANE HANDCOCK: Forgive Them (Live at Blue Note LA)
Marcus Harvey: Mapula
Lavils: XCITED
Victor Ray: You & I (feat. Aiyana-Lee)
Chrisette Michele: Flower Mamma
Astels: Workin’ All Night
NNAVY: Slowly Burning
SABRI: With You
Eric Penn: Horsepower
Brady Turner: Don’t Wake Me Up
Limage: Only With You
Thee Sinseers: Let’s Fall In Love (Again)
June Buggg & Qui: Red Wine
Will Gittens: Certified
Sam Pounds: I Got a Feeling (feat. Family Company)