Wanting It Strictly on Your Own Terms
Ravyn Lenae issues a warning label, Syd dials 911, and Jae Stephens runs an obedience school, and every one of them negotiates from strength.
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.
It’s obvious that negotiation is this week’s throughline: each and every one of these songs is a compromise. We get one who lays her terms out by the first chorus, one who dodges a want-to-be-commitment he sort of wants, and one who simply begs through a disconnected line. Ravyn Lenae provides a PSA set over a Dahi and Flanafi beat, one who turns a late-night encounter into a 911 emergency, while Jae Stephens comes to a success-or-else victory lap. Nia Smith gives us a relationship she throws away like a pair of old denim shorts; Saint Harison, the committed and apologetic, gives a stand your ground with a sorry plea. Five distinct and varied deals.
Ravyn Lenae, “Handle”
The time the count-in comes in, “Two, three, four” nestled beneath the hook, the you already locked in. “Oh my love is like a landslide, when it all comes down,” she opens, “only one way to find out.” This is Ravyn Lenae in full seductive, disclaimer fashion-the Chicagoan who perfected sounding weightless while being heavy on the Bird’s Eye run. Re-teaming with Dahi and Flanafi with a Pop sound, she’s constructing “Handle” as a proposition with all terms included. The thrill is in how calmly she lays out the terms: “Know I might be more than you could handle,” she coos over the keys, like she’s reading terms of service, before pulling the whole scheme under with: “hold on tight, one with me in the undertow.” Some of the finest pleasure lies on the fringe. After the third chorus, a voice is giving back in asides a voice would never use in a love song: “Look down beneath your fears.” “Your tail grew back, buddy.” “So what’s it going to be? Tell me.” It’s playful, a bit deranged, like this love came with a Greek chorus already knowing how it plays out. By the backstretch, she’s abandoned the pretense and only wants what she wants: “The more you think of me, the more you’ll want me calling your name.” “Can you handle me? You know I want you on the same page.” Lenae spends all of “Handle” telling you she’s too much; by the end of the song, that’s the appeal. The smart people just hold on and let it go under. —Jamila W.
Syd, “Callin’” feat. Blu June
Since when did the booty call develop an anxiety attack? Sometime between the read receipt and the rejected FaceTime, the midnight “come through”text developed a nervous system. “I’m callin’ 911 ‘cause I need your love, and you ain’t pickin’ up, I’m comin’ for your love,” Blu June wails at the very beginning of “Callin’.” For someone who’s fronted the Internet (Syd) for more than ten years and made being “too cool” an entire persona, that’s an almost alarming amount of want to begin with. The artistry is in the fine print. “I don’t really be out on the scene,” Syd confesses, “sittin’ in the section all night, that shit ain’t for me.” It’s a love song for a homebody, not a night out. Then comes the one bar that guarantees the song’s timelessness: “I know you got my messages ‘cause they ain’t turnin’ green.” She bubbles-redacted and unanswered. A generation’s worth of romantic anxieties in a single line. Syd comes back in the second verse, turning June’s anxiety into a game plan: “Take you out to brunch and get you T’d up, girl, put on that sundress that I like, I’m tryna see somethin’.” Blu June’s still calling; Syd’s already got the table reservation and a wardrobe consultation. —Jhanel
Jae Stephens, “Attaboy!”
“Good boy.” It’s two words, tossed out like a treat into a dog’s dish, and the song is in motion. The idea of “Attaboy!” is that the singer, has essentially taken a man of bad behavior, and, through what she refers to as her “unorthodox ways”,house-trained him. “I used to be a bad boy with a tail ‘tween his legs, couldn’t be fixed, that’s what all the girls said.” She fixed him. It’s Jae Stephens doing a full obedience school prime time on a Dallas Caton beat, and the joke is the lack of mercy she exhibits in it. She takes it all so seriously; there is no tongue-in-cheek wink with her, not once. The upgrades come via ad-libs that fill in details: “Now he calls on time (A miracle) and he’s so polite (And fragile).” Fragile! She trained this man and then ruined him a little, and this parenthetical doesn’t give us a chance to ignore it. “I only have to tell him once, then I’m quick to cut ‘em off if you make me wait.” By the bridge, he is furniture, and everything she has done in this song has built to this: “I got him trained, made him, taught him, raised and fixed that boy.” A long history of Pop/R&B women have sung about running their men and the interesting thing about Stephens is that it costs her nothing. She got what she wanted, and only the good boy is going to have any reason to be uncomfortable with it. Good for her. Debut on the way. —Charlotte Rochel
Nia Smith, “High”
Some breakup songs function as temperature changers, never raising their volume above conversation, and High functions in that quiet way. “High” starts almost too quiet to even be heard. “It’s only a feeling,” Nia Smith sings, “not a vibe. Used to make me feel alive.” By the fourth line, she has already categorized the relationship as a past tense phenomenon. Over production from Jack Rochon, she strings together small, mundane sentences that read like they’re only the equivalent of a shrugging shoulders until they don’t: “It’s over. Let it go. Don’t know how to let it go. But I will know soon.” The saddest metaphor is in the laundry section. “Like jeans that are faded, lost and frayed,” she sings, “it’s nothing worth saving, throw it away.”
Anyone who has clung onto a relationship long after it expired knows the specific embarrassment that comes with a comparison of worn-out, torn up jeans.The casual line cuts deeper: “I watered us so we could grow, but I know we’re dying.” This is the entire tragedy of attempting: the portion where one does everything right and the thing dies anyway.The most heartbreaking pun is in the title itself. “You don’t get me high high high, anymore.” The effect wears off, and there’s no anger involved. She just isn’t feeling it anymore, and she simply states it as she exits, the same detached tone a person might take in explaining that the milk is spoiled. “High” works by changing the temperature of whatever room it plays in, and then leaving. —Mina Abdel
Saint Harison, “minute”
The standout from the ghosted EP tries to decide between keeping someone in bed with him and needing them gone by morning. Saint Harison in “minute” can’t remain still, or in one position for longer than two lines. “Said you want forever, baby, now I need a minute,” he belts out in the chorus, “little time to lay up in this bed without you in it.” This is the entirety of the song’s machinery: a man who adores love right up to the point at which love requires any effort from him. He plays the commitment-phobe with a level of self-awareness that makes the entire persona nearly endearing.
The boasts continue to alternate with apologies. At one point he’s casual to the verge of rudeness: “And if you leave your t-shirt, I’m alright with that.” At another point he’s divulging the most inconvenient thing possible: “I admit I think about your ex, boo, a little more than maybe just a friend would do.” He lays out his deal while taking a glass of reposado: “I’m just being honest,” as though truth itself negates the hurt caused. Toward the end of the track, the swagger breaks completely. “I wish I was what you hoped I was. I’m sorry, really sorry.” He’s been wearing armor of chill the entire track, but his one genuine emotion breaks through. That leaves the question he’s been spending all his time dancing around: If you already know you’re not who she needs, what do you need her to stick around a minute for? —Imani Raven
R&B, Soul, or Blues Albums to Check Out
Chxrry: U, Me & My Ego
Brian Jackson: Now More Than Ever
Skye Newman: SE9
Cecily Wilborn: Soul Therapy
Amani Burnham: Roots and Wings
Joey Quiñones: Inna Soul Steady Situation
Reuben Aziz: mind the gap
Alicia Waller: Louder, Then
Mitchum Yacoub: A Way In
Kat Eaton: What Happens Now
annonXL: PRINCESS OF CHAOS
reggie: UNDRA
Saint Harison: ghosted (EP)
Jordan Jackson: Back to Basics (EP)
Phoenix James: Teeth (EP)
MALIA: If I’m Being Honest (EP)
Ye Ali: AFTER U LEFT (EP)
Stevan: DEMO TAPE 1 (EP)
Kennedy Ryon: Can I Evolve? (EP)
Ania Hoo: MORNING STAR: SIDE A (EP)
The Philharmonik: Transcendentalism II (EP)
KFMD & Qing Madi: Barely Legal (EP)
Other Songs to Check Out
CARI: Crashing Out!
Noxz & Shae Universe: Can’t Phase Me
Camper: MISSIN / NEXT TO ME (feat. RAHSAAN)
Patchwork Inc. & Lynda Dawn: Anyone
MIRIAH.: BLUE FACES
YalaBear: $HOW U OFF (feat. Rakiyah)
Arima Ederra: You’re My (A COLORS Show)
H.LLS & Mahalia: FCUK
Gotts Street Park & Matt Maltese: Some Birds Don’t Fly
Samant & Barney Bones: BENJAMINS
Olivia Escuyos: GET RIGHT!
The Erikson Project & Odoneila: Camisole
Aaron Taylor: Lifeline
Jessie Reyez: UR HEARTBEAT (WHO DO U THINK ABOUT AT 2AM)
Rory, BLK ODYSSY & Lucky Daye: Still Be Mine
AJ McLean & Ty Dolla $ign: Flowers
Baby J: Fallen Angel
Blood Orange: Essex_Honey.mp3
Khadi Lee: DON’T
BLKPRL: Art of Desire
Kareen Lomax: AOTW
Jazlyn Martin: Germy
PJ Morton: Close Enough
Cautious Clay: Green Screen (1pm)
Lex Aura: Denicia
Dylan Sinclair: On Cam
Brianna Castro: shot in the dark!
Aaron Page: Mine
Low.bō: Spine
Flozigg: A Thousand Degrees
Makindé: thrudavine (feat. Niko Noir)
CANDIACE, Tamar Braxton & Darrel Walls: If Only…. (The Conversation)
Guordan Banks: Alright
Sylo: How Sweet
WILLOW: Talk On the Hill
BenjiFlow & Haile: Standing Here
Faye Meana: The Way I Love
Misha, Phil Beaudreau & cocobona: Dream of Summer
Mia Lailani: EBB & FLOW
Jacob Sigman: X OVER ZERO
Echo Huang: PRAY FOR ME
Arlissa: A Girl Just Wants to Be…