Music Reviews

In the fall of 2002, R&B music was a changing landscape. However, that didn’t stop The Prom Queen Of Soul, a.k.a., Mrs. Whitney Houston, from releasing her fifth album Just Whitney on December 10th, 2022. Just Whitney was Houston’s fifth studio album and the first after she renewed her contract with Arista for $100 million.

The current lineup of legendary R&B trio features founding members Eddie Levert, Walter Williams, Sr., and Eric Nolan Grant, who joined the group in 1997. Tonight I get to cross an item off my musical bucket list as I’m attending the Washington D.C. stop of the group’s Last Stop on the Love Train tour.

No matter the music genre, every group has a standout member who is destined for solo stardom. Lionel Richie was already three years into a successful solo career when his former band, The Commodores, released its eleventh album, Nightshift.

Mariah Carey was already one of the biggest stars in music when her seventh studio album, Rainbow, hit stores on November 2nd, 1999. At the time, I was a senior in high school living in El Paso, Texas. Before that, I had spent the last six years outside Washington D.C. Naturally, living so close to Chocolate City with numerous urban radio stations, album cuts weren’t that hard to come by. Particularly during the quiet storm.

Growing up in the nineties, I had the chance to experience a plethora of R&B singers. The market had such a colossal saturation that often, a singer would get lost in the shuffle. Lorenzo Smith, this week’s pick for Second Listen Sunday, is one such artist.

For this week’s Slow Jam Saturday, I wanted to give the elegant Shanice Wilson and her lush ballad “Saving Forever for You” some flowers.

With the help of the group Subway, Bivins attempted to take on the teen market again in the spring of 1995. We all remember “Fire” and how big that song was in our middle school days.

Throughout “Sensitivity” and his later work, Ralph Tresvant’s high tenor voice had evolved from his squeaky Michael Jackson manqué to a more polished and refined high tenor tone. As far as his voice is concerned, he was still a perfect fit for a romantic or good-guy ballad, and “Sensitivity” from the 1990’s worked like a charm and became a classic.

Musician Kem returns to the scene with his latest EP, Full Circle. The Detroit-based singer opens up his latest project with “Stuck On You,” which has seen success on the Urban AC charts.

After numerous delays and title changes, R&B singer Ne-Yo returns with his latest project, Self-Explanatory. Due to the COVID pandemic, Ne-Yo had to put the project on the back burner despite releasing singles for the project going to 2020.