Even as we witness the erasure of real Black women in R&B, Leela James, Yahzarah and Dr. E. offer three different models of making sure the voices of Black R&B gurls are heard.
What’s a (Black R&B) Gurl to Do?:
Leela James, Yahzarah and Dr. E.
by Mark Anthony Neal
If you are a female R&B singer and your name is Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige, or Beyonce it is perhaps the best of times; you have unprecedented access to mainstream media, your music is radio-friendly in the broadest sense (I must hear Key’s “Un-thinkable” fifteen times a day) and to many fans, you are not simply an R&B singer, but a pop star, worthy of a morning or two, sitting on the set of The View. But alas, if your name is not Keys, Blige and Beyonce, the situation is considerably different.
Take the examples of Erykah Badu and Janelle Monae. Badu, whose New Amerykah, Pt. 2: Return of the Ankh, is easily her most accomplished recording since Mama’s Gun was released a decade ago, literally had to strip on the screen—albeit with a hint of avant-garde agitprop—in order to get people excited about her new recording. Months after the “controversy,” few talk about what might be one of the most stellar R&B releases of the year.
Janelle Monae’s The ArchAndroid is another fine recording from an artist, I would argue, who has yet to find her voice, but Monae was largely marketed as the quirky Black girl who dared to imagine herself in the context of Fritz Lang’s 1929 film Metropolis. Kudos to Monae for imagining outside of the sphere (yet another iteration of Afro-Futurism), as Rob Fields argues in his fine review of The ArchAndroid, but I wonder if critics and others would have found the talented Monae as compelling had she simply played it straight (whatever that might mean in 2010). Truth be told Monae succeeds, in part, because she is not your regular R&B gurl—the anti-Keyshia Cole if you will. No doubt Monae will have to reboot Brave New World the next time around to remain as relevant as she is now.
The point is that there seems to be little space in the world of contemporary R&B to be a regular Black gurl—or a god-fearing, honest to goodness grown-ass black woman, full of desires, anxieties and ambition. Indeed, conventional wisdom suggest that in this environment legendary singers like Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross (the Keys, Blige and Beyonce of their generation) would not have survived the first three or four years of their solo careers. But even as we witness the erasure of real Black women in R&B—perhaps mirroring the same erasure in mainstream culture in general—Leela James, Yahzarah and Dr. E. offer three different models of making sure the voices of Black R&B gurls are heard.
Leela James’s new release My Soul finds the singer at a bit of a crossroads. James possesses an instrument—big, gritty and grown—more apt to evoke Mavis Staples and Betty Wright in their prime or seasoned contemporary veterans like Bettye LaVette and Sharon Jones, than anything that passes as popular on your local urban radio station. Clearly a hip-hop baby, James’s strategy has been to do R&B’s version of the time-warp dance, a strategy mined to varying success by traditional R&B types like Raphael Saadiq, Solange Knowles and John Legend (particularly on Once Again) and “alternative” critical faves like Amy Winehouse and the aforementioned Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.
On the heels of her recent recording of covers, 2009’s Let’s Do It Again, and now recording on the revamped Stax label, James seems more intent to musically fit into this century. Though the smoker “I Ain’t New to This” (a reminder that she’s paid some industry dues) and “So Cold” are credible attempts by James to sound relevant, her voice is a constant reminder that she was not built for this era—her voice simply articulates a depth and complexity that has long been gone from R&B.
James is more successful when she manages to meld and update classic Soul/R&B sensibilities with a contemporary urgency as she does on tracks like “Supa Luva” (with a closing nod to The O’Jay’s “Forever Mine”) and “I Want It All.” Ultimately James sounds most comfortable wrapped in throwback grooves, such as the 60’s house-party groove “Let It Roll,” the sweet “The Fact Is” which samples The Moments’ “Lovely Way She Loves” and My Soul’s standout track, “Mr. Incredible—Ms. Unforgettable,” where James is paired with Raheem DeVaughn.
Last year Washington D.C. native Yahzarah, appeared on Foreign Exchange’s stellar Grammy nominated Leave It All Behind, including a brilliant take on Stevie Wonder’s “If She Breaks Your Heart” (originally recorded on the Jungle Fever soundtrack). The Ballad of Purple Saint James, Yahzarah’s third full length recording and first since 2003, is an extension of her collaboration with Foreign Exchange’s Nicolay and Phonte Coleman. Yahzarah, like Eric Robeson, is of a generation of R&B artists who have made peace with their marginal status in relation to mainstream radio airplay and visibility.
While some drive-time programs like Michael Baisden’s have done well to make sure that audiences hear a Leela James and Eric Roberson, Yahzarah is simply not on enough radars; more unfortunate for audiences than Yahzarah. For example, The Ballad of Purple Saint James’s lead single “Why Dontcha Call Me No More” is every bit as infectious as Janelle Monae’s “Tight Rope” or Katy Perry’s “California Girls,” yet Yahzarah remains in the pop and R&B ghetto, a treasure to be enjoyed by a select few willing to put in the labor to find good music beyond the mainstream.
Like most post-Soul babies in the recording industry, Yahzarah’s music evidences the democratization of the radio airwaves in the last two decades. So while “Why Dontcha Call Me No More” is perfectly pitched to a pop world that “Hey Ya” helped birth, throughout The Ballad of Purple Saint James, one hears an artist giving witness to a full range of musical influences, though always remaining grounded in the sounds—Soul, Jazz and Rhythm and Blues—that helped change a nation two generations ago.
On tracks like “All My Days” with Darien Brockington and the beautiful “Shadow,” the cosmopolitan Soul—a Soul that sounds like it’s been somewhere else—of Foreign Exchange rings out. Yet on “Have a Heart” you can hear the impact of 3+3 era Isley Brothers—the track is a deft reimagining of “Voyage to Atlantic” that is all Yahzarah’s. The artist gives a nod to classic Doo-Wop on her stripped down, multilayered voiced rendition of “Dedicated to You,” a Sammy Cahn standard recorded by Ella Fitzgerald in the late 1930s and famously by Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane on their 1963 duet album. On a track like “Starship,” Yahzarah channels mid-1980s era Prince.
The clear highlight of The Ballad of Purple Saint James, is in fact a ballad. Logging in at over six minutes, “Last to Leave” is a big-ole, old-school slow jam that recalls the era—the late 1970s and early 1980s—in which Quiet Storm radio formats (birthed in Yahzarah’s native city) were first popularized. When Ruben Studdard sings, “They don’t make em like you no more…” he could have been singing about Yahzarah’s “Last to Leave.”
If Leela James and Yahzarah have come to terms with their relative marginality to the mainstream of Black culture, Dr. E’s Elevated is reminder that for many artists it is simply the music that matters most. Dr. E aka Elaine Richardson, Ph.D has a story to tell and the music becomes the ideal site for stories that matter—to herself, to grown-ass Black women, to a generation of Black and Brown gurls who need to know that what they feel in their hearts and their spirits is ultimately what matters most.
Released independently on Give Us Free Records, Dr. E’s Elevated channels the sassy Black Gurl that sits at the root of the black musical experience in this country from Bessie Smith to Leela James. Vocally, Dr. E’s instrument recalls the lighter and playful side of Patti Labelle’s voice during her formative years in the Bluebelles. Not surprisingly, Dr. E. is a student of Black music idioms exemplified by the bluesey “Let Me Clear My Throat” and the jazzy “Walk This Road.” Dr. E’s humor comes through on the funny, but defiant “Halle Berry” as she sings, “if I looked Halle Berry, could get into me” before responding “I can’t be no Halle Berry, I can only be me, wanna be me, gonna be me, take me or leave me.” The track captures the insecurities that adult black women often experience and that rarely get a hearing in contemporary R&B.
Virtually all of the songs were written by Dr. E, who is also a Professor of Education at the Ohio State University. The one song not written by Dr. E. is the Van Heusen and Burke standard “Here’s that Rainy Day.” Though the song has been recorded numerous times, it is perhaps most memorable to Black audiences as a song that the late Phyllis Hyman recorded early in her career. Dr. E’s fine rendition clearly recalls Hyman’s version, thus the song serves as both the tribute to the late Hyman and a reminder of the chronic depression that led to Hyman taking her own life—a depression that Dr. E. and a far too many Black women deal with.
With tracks like the title tune “Elevated” and “Good Girl Down” (“they tried to label me/table me/play on me/hate on me…” Dr. E. taps into the kind of spirit that she herself deployed as she transitioned, in her own words, from “P.H.D. to Ph.D.”: a “poor ho on dope” to the nationally recognized Literacy scholar that she is now. There are so few spaces for Black women to tell these stories and despite so many talented artists having to toil in obscurity, Dr. E’s Elevated, like Yahzarah’s The Ballad of Purple Saint James and Leela James’s My Soul gives voice to what so many would rather ignore.
What’s a (Black R&B) Gurl to Do?:
Leela James, Yahzarah and Dr. E.
by Mark Anthony Neal
If you are a female R&B singer and your name is Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige, or Beyonce it is perhaps the best of times; you have unprecedented access to mainstream media, your music is radio-friendly in the broadest sense (I must hear Key’s “Un-thinkable” fifteen times a day) and to many fans, you are not simply an R&B singer, but a pop star, worthy of a morning or two, sitting on the set of The View. But alas, if your name is not Keys, Blige and Beyonce, the situation is considerably different.
Take the examples of Erykah Badu and Janelle Monae. Badu, whose New Amerykah, Pt. 2: Return of the Ankh, is easily her most accomplished recording since Mama’s Gun was released a decade ago, literally had to strip on the screen—albeit with a hint of avant-garde agitprop—in order to get people excited about her new recording. Months after the “controversy,” few talk about what might be one of the most stellar R&B releases of the year.
Janelle Monae’s The ArchAndroid is another fine recording from an artist, I would argue, who has yet to find her voice, but Monae was largely marketed as the quirky Black girl who dared to imagine herself in the context of Fritz Lang’s 1929 film Metropolis. Kudos to Monae for imagining outside of the sphere (yet another iteration of Afro-Futurism), as Rob Fields argues in his fine review of The ArchAndroid, but I wonder if critics and others would have found the talented Monae as compelling had she simply played it straight (whatever that might mean in 2010). Truth be told Monae succeeds, in part, because she is not your regular R&B gurl—the anti-Keyshia Cole if you will. No doubt Monae will have to reboot Brave New World the next time around to remain as relevant as she is now.
The point is that there seems to be little space in the world of contemporary R&B to be a regular Black gurl—or a god-fearing, honest to goodness grown-ass black woman, full of desires, anxieties and ambition. Indeed, conventional wisdom suggest that in this environment legendary singers like Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross (the Keys, Blige and Beyonce of their generation) would not have survived the first three or four years of their solo careers. But even as we witness the erasure of real Black women in R&B—perhaps mirroring the same erasure in mainstream culture in general—Leela James, Yahzarah and Dr. E. offer three different models of making sure the voices of Black R&B gurls are heard.
Leela James’s new release My Soul finds the singer at a bit of a crossroads. James possesses an instrument—big, gritty and grown—more apt to evoke Mavis Staples and Betty Wright in their prime or seasoned contemporary veterans like Bettye LaVette and Sharon Jones, than anything that passes as popular on your local urban radio station. Clearly a hip-hop baby, James’s strategy has been to do R&B’s version of the time-warp dance, a strategy mined to varying success by traditional R&B types like Raphael Saadiq, Solange Knowles and John Legend (particularly on Once Again) and “alternative” critical faves like Amy Winehouse and the aforementioned Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.
On the heels of her recent recording of covers, 2009’s Let’s Do It Again, and now recording on the revamped Stax label, James seems more intent to musically fit into this century. Though the smoker “I Ain’t New to This” (a reminder that she’s paid some industry dues) and “So Cold” are credible attempts by James to sound relevant, her voice is a constant reminder that she was not built for this era—her voice simply articulates a depth and complexity that has long been gone from R&B.
James is more successful when she manages to meld and update classic Soul/R&B sensibilities with a contemporary urgency as she does on tracks like “Supa Luva” (with a closing nod to The O’Jay’s “Forever Mine”) and “I Want It All.” Ultimately James sounds most comfortable wrapped in throwback grooves, such as the 60’s house-party groove “Let It Roll,” the sweet “The Fact Is” which samples The Moments’ “Lovely Way She Loves” and My Soul’s standout track, “Mr. Incredible—Ms. Unforgettable,” where James is paired with Raheem DeVaughn.
Last year Washington D.C. native Yahzarah, appeared on Foreign Exchange’s stellar Grammy nominated Leave It All Behind, including a brilliant take on Stevie Wonder’s “If She Breaks Your Heart” (originally recorded on the Jungle Fever soundtrack). The Ballad of Purple Saint James, Yahzarah’s third full length recording and first since 2003, is an extension of her collaboration with Foreign Exchange’s Nicolay and Phonte Coleman. Yahzarah, like Eric Robeson, is of a generation of R&B artists who have made peace with their marginal status in relation to mainstream radio airplay and visibility.
While some drive-time programs like Michael Baisden’s have done well to make sure that audiences hear a Leela James and Eric Roberson, Yahzarah is simply not on enough radars; more unfortunate for audiences than Yahzarah. For example, The Ballad of Purple Saint James’s lead single “Why Dontcha Call Me No More” is every bit as infectious as Janelle Monae’s “Tight Rope” or Katy Perry’s “California Girls,” yet Yahzarah remains in the pop and R&B ghetto, a treasure to be enjoyed by a select few willing to put in the labor to find good music beyond the mainstream.
Like most post-Soul babies in the recording industry, Yahzarah’s music evidences the democratization of the radio airwaves in the last two decades. So while “Why Dontcha Call Me No More” is perfectly pitched to a pop world that “Hey Ya” helped birth, throughout The Ballad of Purple Saint James, one hears an artist giving witness to a full range of musical influences, though always remaining grounded in the sounds—Soul, Jazz and Rhythm and Blues—that helped change a nation two generations ago.
On tracks like “All My Days” with Darien Brockington and the beautiful “Shadow,” the cosmopolitan Soul—a Soul that sounds like it’s been somewhere else—of Foreign Exchange rings out. Yet on “Have a Heart” you can hear the impact of 3+3 era Isley Brothers—the track is a deft reimagining of “Voyage to Atlantic” that is all Yahzarah’s. The artist gives a nod to classic Doo-Wop on her stripped down, multilayered voiced rendition of “Dedicated to You,” a Sammy Cahn standard recorded by Ella Fitzgerald in the late 1930s and famously by Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane on their 1963 duet album. On a track like “Starship,” Yahzarah channels mid-1980s era Prince.
The clear highlight of The Ballad of Purple Saint James, is in fact a ballad. Logging in at over six minutes, “Last to Leave” is a big-ole, old-school slow jam that recalls the era—the late 1970s and early 1980s—in which Quiet Storm radio formats (birthed in Yahzarah’s native city) were first popularized. When Ruben Studdard sings, “They don’t make em like you no more…” he could have been singing about Yahzarah’s “Last to Leave.”
If Leela James and Yahzarah have come to terms with their relative marginality to the mainstream of Black culture, Dr. E’s Elevated is reminder that for many artists it is simply the music that matters most. Dr. E aka Elaine Richardson, Ph.D has a story to tell and the music becomes the ideal site for stories that matter—to herself, to grown-ass Black women, to a generation of Black and Brown gurls who need to know that what they feel in their hearts and their spirits is ultimately what matters most.
Released independently on Give Us Free Records, Dr. E’s Elevated channels the sassy Black Gurl that sits at the root of the black musical experience in this country from Bessie Smith to Leela James. Vocally, Dr. E’s instrument recalls the lighter and playful side of Patti Labelle’s voice during her formative years in the Bluebelles. Not surprisingly, Dr. E. is a student of Black music idioms exemplified by the bluesey “Let Me Clear My Throat” and the jazzy “Walk This Road.” Dr. E’s humor comes through on the funny, but defiant “Halle Berry” as she sings, “if I looked Halle Berry, could get into me” before responding “I can’t be no Halle Berry, I can only be me, wanna be me, gonna be me, take me or leave me.” The track captures the insecurities that adult black women often experience and that rarely get a hearing in contemporary R&B.
Virtually all of the songs were written by Dr. E, who is also a Professor of Education at the Ohio State University. The one song not written by Dr. E. is the Van Heusen and Burke standard “Here’s that Rainy Day.” Though the song has been recorded numerous times, it is perhaps most memorable to Black audiences as a song that the late Phyllis Hyman recorded early in her career. Dr. E’s fine rendition clearly recalls Hyman’s version, thus the song serves as both the tribute to the late Hyman and a reminder of the chronic depression that led to Hyman taking her own life—a depression that Dr. E. and a far too many Black women deal with.
With tracks like the title tune “Elevated” and “Good Girl Down” (“they tried to label me/table me/play on me/hate on me…” Dr. E. taps into the kind of spirit that she herself deployed as she transitioned, in her own words, from “P.H.D. to Ph.D.”: a “poor ho on dope” to the nationally recognized Literacy scholar that she is now. There are so few spaces for Black women to tell these stories and despite so many talented artists having to toil in obscurity, Dr. E’s Elevated, like Yahzarah’s The Ballad of Purple Saint James and Leela James’s My Soul gives voice to what so many would rather ignore.
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