In 2004 I made a name for myself as a part-time DJ while serving in the Air Force. My first duty station was in the United Kingdom, which sometimes meant music was slow to arrive for retail purchase. The holiday season was kicking off, and the Crunk sound was everywhere. Hip Hop group Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz released their fifth album Crunk Juice. As I often do, I gave the album a listen straight through to find samples and album tracks that I would work into my set in hopes they would catch on by club-goers.
To my surprise, after a Chris Rock skit on the album, Lil Jon gave us a slow jam! The song “Lovers & Friends” featured guest spots from Usher & Ludacris. Pulling out the liner notes, I discovered that Lil Jon had sampled the song from a singer named Michael Sterling, who is this week’s pick for Slow Jam Saturday. I must’ve listened to the song five times in a row and instantly knew three things; the song had hit potential, that I would work it into my next DJ set, and I had heard the song in my previous life travels.
“Lovers and Friends” was the second song on Sterling’s third solo album, 1990’s Trouble. Sterling has a unique falsetto voice, and he opens the song with a spoken word where he expresses repentance for his mistakes in his last relationship as an adolescent. At about the one minute and five-second mark of the song, Sterling smoothly croons:
“Place your trust in me
Darling, you will see the kind of love that makes the world go around
You’re my woman
You’re the one, that wraps your love around me so tight
I can feel it. I can feel it girl, Come on…
Tell me again my baby whoa
We will be so much more, girl
(Tell me again) Tell me again girl, Come on
(That we’ll be lovers and friends)
Lovers and friends, my baby”.
Sterling avoids oversinging the song, and the listener genuinely feels his emotion throughout. The OG version of “Lovers & Friends” became a staple on Slow Jam Mix CDs during the winter and spring months of 2005. I’m sure those who knew me while l lived in Europe heard the song at some point. I even found a way to feature “Lovers & Friends” as my closing song. I knew it was the right choice when my good friend and Miami resident Michael French made his way to the DJ booth. French dapped me up for not only surprising him by knowing the song and showing love to one of his neighborhood heroes. As French would say, “Lovers and Friends” is a quiet storm staple.
Final Grade: A
“Lovers and Friends” from Trouble is available on all streaming platforms.
For this week’s Second Listen Sunday, I want to revisit 2004 and highlight Romeo’s debut solo album, formerly of Immature. Titled “Food for Thought” and released on June 22nd, this project marked the singer’s change of name to Young Rome in an effort to distance himself from the youthful sound of his group, much like his bandmate Marques Houston had done a year earlier.
In the nineties, Hip-Hop reigned supreme, and every label CEO wanted a share of the lucrative R&B market. One strategy was to keep singers on their roster who could deliver catchy hooks, keeping everything in-house and saving money. Bad Boy had Carl Thomas, Death Row had Danny Boy, and Roc-A-Fella had Rell, our featured artist for this week’s Slow Jam Saturday
Growing up in the eighties, I was surrounded by incredibly talented male R&B singers who could deliver unforgettable love songs. Artists like Luther Vandross, Jeffrey Osborne, and Peabo Bryson dominated the airwaves, but Freddie Jackson was another voice that truly deserved recognition.