Category: Hip Hop

Patti LaBelle is a literal dramatic soprano. Over the more than five decades of her career, Philadelphia’s Patricia Louise Holt has been known for her impossibly high and spiky “art deco” hair; her grand, animated moves while performing; and a head voice that can be heard from blocks away. She takes up space of every kind; Patti kicks her shoes into the audience, she rolls around on the stage, she flaps her arms like wings. She enters rooms fur-clad with a smile that beams across to the furthest corner; she traverses stages in ensembles that shine, or flow, or drape, or sometimes all three. Patti has presence.

She also doesn’t sing within the lines – she’s prone to change keys and octaves without warning, letting the spirit of the riff take over, pushing the original song structure and melody aside if need be. For most of her career, LaBelle’s refusal to tone her Patti’ness down has prevented her from sitting in the same critically-acclaimed and mainstream-approved spaces as Aretha, Dionne and Diana.

Patti scored a Top 40 hit early in her career with The Bluebelles and the song “I Sold My Heart to the Junkman” in 1962. Then, following a few stalled attempts at a futuristic glam funk/rock reinvention as LaBelle, scored a No. 1 classic with “Lady Marmalade.” But Patti never got into a solid creative flow for long stretches, even when she launched her solo career following Nona Hendrix’s departure from LaBelle. Loyal fans and willing labels kept Patti in the game even through periods when her music career seemed to be faltering. She tried new formulas, new writers, new producers, and sounds. And she was willing to be flexible and adaptable. It paid off in the mid-’80s when, while many of her peers were transitioning to the oldies concert circuit, Patti finally found pop stardom at 41 years-old, thanks to a new attitude.

In 1984, Patti landed the lead single for the accompanying soundtrack of Eddie Murphy’s action-comedy Beverly Hills Cop. The movie catapulted Eddie Murphy to superstardom, and the soundtrack introduced Patti to the MTV generation and launched her into the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100. “New Attitude” was a statement song for the already veteran singer; in the first official music video of her career, LaBelle emerges from a chic boutique fitting room with her trademark spiked hair crown and a star-worthy look. She’d been solo for several years already, but this felt like her debut moment.

“New Attitude,” followed by “Stir it Up,” gave Patti’s career a new life, and a new deal with MCA. The singer was incredibly aware that the heightened awareness wasn’t due to any elevation of her talent, but rather a change in who was finally paying attention. “Because of ‘New Attitude,’ I’ve been played on more white stations than I’ve been played on ever in my life…And it’s about time. I hate to be put in a slot,” she told the Washington Post in 1985. “Music is music and shouldn’t be categorized. If you’re called an R&B singer because you’re Black, a lot of people will close their minds, say ‘She’s going to sing us out of the place, or deafen us.’ In fact, that R&B singer can probably sing anything that he or she is given, given a chance. I want to be accepted on all radio stations, on all TV shows, on all video programs.”

In 1986, Patti released her MCA debut Winner in You, leading with the power ballad “On My Own.” Pop standards maestro Burt Bacharach composed the song for his frequent collaborator and muse Dionne Warwick, but it was ultimately left off her 1985 album Friends. The ballad was intended as a solo reflection on divorce, but after trying a pass with Patti by herself, the idea came to add former Doobie Brothers frontman Michael McDonald to the track. They recorded separately, on different coasts in fact, but the result was magic. “On My Own” soared to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, R&B and AC charts, remaining on all three for multiple weeks, and garnered a Best Pop Vocal by a Duo or Group nomination at the 1986 Grammys. It remains both LaBelle’s and McDonald’s biggest hit to date, and finally commanded the approval of critics who’d too often written Patti off for what they considered oversinging antics.

With the help of “On My Own,” Winner in You debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Some critics crowned Patti LaBelle the Queen of Rock and Soul, a title that slotted her directly in between Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner, who were also – along with Dionne Warwick – experiencing triumphant ascents to pop stardom in their 40s; a time that could easily have been the addendum of their careers.

“There are a lot of things that make me know that I really haven’t made it, but I’ve made it enough in the public’s eye to make me feel wonderful. That’s what keeps me going – the public’s loving me and thinking I’m this superstar. It makes me feel good, but I know better,” she candidly shared in that same Washington Post interview. “I know my time is coming…It’s not here already. No, not yet. I’m on the steps of the house of making it. And then I’ll be in the door.”

In 1989, Patti released her ninth studio album Be Yourself, which featured the Diane Warren-penned “If You Asked Me To.” The torch ballad was also featured on the soundtrack for the James Bond film Licence to Kill, released the same year. Despite the profile of the Bond franchise, the song hit the Top 10 of the R&B charts but didn’t cross over. But a few short years later, Celine Dion’s cover peaked at No. 4 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 at AC.

Years later, when reviewing the song as part of a Dion greatest hits package, critic Geoff Edgars noted: “the hit ‘If You Asked Me To,’ with Dion’s moaning, pleading, screaming take-me vocals, works when reassessed as a chunk of modern soul as worthy as anything recorded by Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey.” It’s odd that he didn’t choose to reference the originator of all the moaning, pleading, screaming vocals. Or, maybe not at all. When asked by Canadian press why she thought Dion’s version was more successful in 2007, LaBelle responded frankly, “Because she’s a white girl.” She went on to explain, “People pay more respect to white artists who sing well before they do Black women…I’ve been singing for 45 years and that’s an obstacle that I’m still… I’m getting over it.”

Patti’s pop moment peaked with “If You Asked Me To” and the Be Yourself album, although she continued to put up hits on the R&B chart for the majority of the 90s. While she’s celebrated and beloved in the Black music community, she still doesn’t get the mainstream respect that many of her peers have gotten. “Patti LaBelle is a household name,” David Nathan told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. “Americans know who she is. But if you ask most music buyers to name a Patti LaBelle solo hit, they can’t. Black audiences can. But that’s part of the nature of America.”

Although Patti’s continued to express the desire for a bigger musical fan base over the years (she’s broadened her overall brand through TV, cookbooks, her frenzy-inducing Patti Pies, and even a turn on Dancing With the Stars), she’s always been certain of one thing: her level of superstardom – or lack thereof – wasn’t about her talent. Immediately after revealing that Celine Dion’s success with “If You Ask Me To” was one of the hardest moments of her career, LaBelle expressed her mantra in the face of a biased music industry: “You can’t beat me up. You can’t make me feel less than I am, because whenever I get the microphone I’m gonna show you who I am.”

This feature was first published in 2020. It is being republished today in celebration of Patti LaBelle’s birthday. Black Music Reframed is an ongoing editorial series on uDiscover Music that seeks to encourage a different lens, a wider lens, a new lens, when considering Black music; one not defined by genre parameters or labels, but by the creators. Sales and charts and firsts and rarities are important. But artists, music, and moments that shape culture aren’t always best-sellers, chart-toppers, or immediate successes. This series, which centers Black writers writing about Black music, takes a new look at music and moments that have previously either been overlooked or not had their stories told with the proper context.

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The-Dream has released the official music video for “Bring That Body.” The single previews his upcoming studio album Love/Hate II, arriving soon through RadioKilla Records and Republic Records. The video places The-Dream in a late-night setting built around dim lighting, a saloon backdrop, and a private-night-out atmosphere.

“Bring That Body” arrives as The-Dream prepares Love/Hate II, the sequel to his 2007 debut album. In the press release, he describes the project as a record about the current state of love. “I want to make a record about where love is now,” he said. “Relationships became cheapened. People used to fight for their love.” The announcement also follows recognition from The New York Times, which named The-Dream among “The 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters” and cited his work on Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” Mariah Carey’s “Touch My Body,” and Justin Bieber’s “Baby.”

The-Dream has spent nearly 20 years as a singer, songwriter, and producer whose catalog spans R&B, pop, country, and hip-hop. In 2024, he won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for his contributions to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter. His recent credits also include The Clipse’s “All Things Considered,” Rosalía’s “Sauvignon Blanc,” and Summer Walker’s “Allegedly.” The new video follows press attention for “Bring That Body” from Variety, Complex, and VIBE, with VIBE including the song among “The 50 Hip-Hop And R&B Releases You Need On Your Playlist.”

Listen to THE-DREAM’s “Bring That Body” here.

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It is notable, to me, that when Berry Gordy first heard “What’s Going On” back in the late summer of 1970, he suggested that Marvin Gaye was going to ruin his career. That the artist was going down a path from which he wouldn’t be able to recover. Some of this was simply care. Gaye was Gordy’s brother-in-law, and Gaye’s career seemed to be on shaky ground. Another big, failed album release could do irreversible damage. The music business is a business, after all. There are interests that must be served outside of whatever personal investments an artist might have in the complicated nature of the world they’re in.

But there were young people, dying in a war. There were Black soldiers coming home wounded, and still being treated like second-class citizens. The time demanded some attempt at rich, historical archival, lest it be lost, or told from the mouths of people who were not touched by the weight of it in the same way.

Marvin’s defiance of a Black boss running a Black label is important, to me. It is what makes this a singular album of seeking. Seeking answers, not for the public, but for the self. The title track and its endless questioning feels rhetorical, but this is an album loaded with questions to which there can be no satisfying answers. At the end of “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” when Marvin brings a listener to the edge of the cliff, shows them the land and asks how much more abuse from man can she stand?, he sounds as lost as a listener might be. As lost as I am now, anxiously basking in the 50-degree days of my deep winter. I don’t know, and even in my not knowing, the questions refuse to vanish. Even as I throw my hands up and shout the same questions out into the air, they are blown back to me, with a responsibility to keep asking. I love this album for how Marvin’s many voices ask and ask but don’t resolve.

The way What’s Going On tugs at the hems of gospel while not losing any of its grief, its rage, its longing – the album feels to me now like it did when I first heard it. Like a small corner of a city. A corner that might feel like a corner I have known and loved. With towering churches, and concerned grandparents, and children playing with a balance of worry and carefree exuberance. Conversations held in the heat of a night around a card table after those kids go to bed. Where the talk gets a little realer, the songs get a little heavier. The album’s concept – a soldier, based on Marvin’s brother Frankie to be exact, returning home from war and sinking into a country’s many oppressions – makes for a tightly woven sequence, but the album’s atmosphere and geography has always far outpaced its concepts. It is an album that I knew I understood even before I understood what its central concerns were. I understood it by the way older people I love hummed along to it, or turned it up, or shook their heads solemnly when certain lines hung in the air.

I hear Black artists get asked, often, the question of who they make their art for. It’s a question I’ve always found boring, and it is certainly a question I don’t hear white artists get asked nearly as much. Some of this, I suspect, is because of the American obsession with Black people creating and existing as a type of duty to serve the machinery of the country. Or, of course, to act as the country’s moral compass. If you are here, and an ancestor of someone who endured capture and forced labor in the name of America’s evolution, America might still turn to you for answers. To make sense of its many ever-evolving messes. And even in an artist’s rejection of that, there is that question: if you are not making art for us to make sense of the world, then who is it for?

There has never been a concrete answer to that, for me. It’s something that changes from project to project, which is the case for every other artist I know. I cannot speak for Marvin Gaye, and he is not here to speak for himself. But when I listen to this album now, or when I listen to it any time, I am confronted with the reality of what Marvin was carrying within when he made it. The concurrent losses, and traumas, and confusions. He was holding all of that, on top of holding the instability of a country that didn’t make the same sense to him as it used to. If there’s anything to learn from this album all of these years later, it’s that Black artists are sometimes simply trying to save themselves, as best as they can, for a little while longer. People can take what they can from that process but, at the core, they are required to be grateful witnesses.

I am grateful to be a witness to Marvin, again and again. Each time, I unlock a new idea, a new mode. A new way of running into a constantly unchanging world, and still asking if it’s up for doing better.

Written in January 2021, a longer version of this essay can be found in the 50th-anniversary edition of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. Hanif Abdurraqib is the author of They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us and Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes on A Tribe Called Quest, among other works. Buy or stream Marvin Gaye’s digital deluxe edition of What’s Going On here.

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Every Ariana Grande album cover features a photo of the singer, each one capturing the intention behind the release. On Dangerous Woman, she projects youthful playfulness with her signature ponytail, though her black-latex bunny mask hints at something more provocative beneath the bubble-gum surface. It was clear that Grande’s third studio album would showcase the singer’s more sensual side while exploiting her knack for interpreting any style or sound with transformative results.

Released on May 20, 2016, Dangerous Woman picked up from where My Everything had left off, delivering more floor-filling dance hits and moving further away from her ballad-heavy beginnings.

Over the hopping backing track of “You Don’t Know Me,” Grande sings, “The girl you see in photographs is only a part of the one I am.” Through its title alone, Dangerous Woman vowed to showcase a new maturity in Grande’s artistry. Sonically, the album furthered that mission, enhancing the retro R&B elements of her first two albums, Yours Truly and My Everything, while exploring more electro-pop soundscapes that would shape her future career.

Entering dangerous new territory

The Dangerous Woman era started with the promotional single “Focus,” which was in October 2015. While “Focus” featured the same upbeat, horn-driven energy of Grande’s 2014 smash hit “Problem,” it also teed up the album’s first official single, as Grande coquettishly instructed listeners to “focus on me.”

Emerging five months later, the album’s title track found Grande venturing into moodier territory than the frothy pop of “Focus.” Sparked by an electric guitar, the singer climatically calls out, “Somethin’ ’bout you makes me feel like a dangerous woman!” throughout the track. We knew Grande could deliver arena-sized singalongs, and this slow jam channeled all the great power ballads of the 80s with a hook that promised, “All girls wanna be like that/Bad girls underneath, like that.”

Listen to Dangerous Woman now.

On the other side of the spectrum, “Be Alright” offered a stark contrast to the slow tempo and sensuality of “Dangerous Woman.” Dipping into a deep house sound, Grande’s celebratory single was adopted as an anthem for the LGBTQ community.

Embracing collaborators

A month later, she’d embark on the new course that trap-R&B had laid out in mainstream music, dropping the hypnotic “Let Me Love You,” featuring Lil Wayne. This paved the way for the dance-pop perfection of “Into You,” which signaled that Grande was ready to storm the summer of 2016.

With a belting declaration of love that revolved around thudding EDM basslines, “Into You” is Grande and hitmaker Max Martin at their best. It contained all the hallmarks of a classic earworm, with Grande’s breathy falsetto floating over the thick beats. Grande finished off the album’s advance singles run with the retro-pop, uptown funk of “Greedy,” a song given away with digital pre-orders and which featured a choir of her exuberant vocals over a slick bassline.

Dangerous Woman opens with the swinging doo-wop ballad “Moonlight,” closely aligning with the sound Grande experimented with on Yours Truly. On the deep cut “Leave Me Lonely,” she brought Macy Gray back into the public eye, the latter expertly delivering some Nina Simone theatrics that fit in with the dramatic nature of the song.

A mature transition

Keeping in line with the album’s premise, Grande debuts her “adult” anthem, “Side To Side,” with help from hip-hop’s raunchiest queen, Nicki Minaj. Like many former child stars turned pop divas before her, Grande was consciously leaning into her “grown-up” phase, while at the same time side-stepping all the usual clichés that came with the territory.

One of the best pop and hip-hop collaborations of the decade, “Side To Side” capitalized on the dancehall trend of the time, with reggae riddims and plenty of sexual innuendo packaged in the campy imagery of the SoulCycle fitness craze. Just as Olivia Newton-John made her “body talk” in the iconic “Let’s Get Physical” music video, Grande and Minaj’s cardio-driven duet rode its way to the top of the charts, hitting No.4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Grande followed “Side To Side” with another collaborative effort on the Future-assisted “Everyday.” As trap-influenced pop started to gain more traction in the mainstream, “Everyday” helped fuel its dominance, paving the way for the trap leanings on her subsequent albums Sweetener and thank u, next.

Evolving the pop formula

Much of Dangerous Woman sees Grande playing with tempos, genres, and time shifts. “I Don’t Care” finds her embracing orchestral R&B to forget a lost love, “Sometimes” ventures into more acoustic pop (a rarity for Grande), and “Bad Decision,” “Touch It,” “Knew Better/Forever Boy” and “Thinking Bout You” all rely on Grande’s powerful pipes and EDM synth-pop production.

With her third album, Ariana Grande found success in evolving the pop formula she’d already established while venturing into uncharted, edgier territory. The gamble paid off, with Dangerous Woman debuting at No.2 on the Billboard 200 charts and notching her first No.1 album in the UK. It was clear that the ascending pop queen was just getting started.

Dangerous Woman can be bought here.

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Widely regarded as one of the 90s landmark debuts, Jodeci’s Forever My Lady was greeted warmly by fans and critics alike. A game-changer in every sense of the term, it’s enjoyed sustained critical acclaim (The Atlantic called it “the album that reinvigorated R&B”) but it also had a broad commercial appeal. It’s sold over three million copies in the U.S. and won industry accolades including Billboard and Soul Train Music awards.

First formed in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1988, Jodeci was the brainchild of Donald Earle DeGrate Jr, better known by his stage name DeVante Swing. A prodigiously talented singer, songwriter and rapper, DeVante idolized Prince and Michael Jackson and wanted to make ground-breaking pop music with his own group, also featuring vocalists Cedric “Ki-Ci” Hailey, Joel “JoJo” Hailey and his brother Dalvin “Mr. Dalvin” DeGrate.

An initial demo tape brokered a deal with NYC-based label Uptown in 1990, though the sessions for Forever My Lady took some months to complete. Jodeci was searching for a cutting edge sound that incorporated elements of hip-hip, jazz, funk and R&B, along with the soul and Gospel music they had absorbed while growing up. In the end, they realized it with the help of Grammy-nominated co-producer Al B. Sure!, whose sound palette and technical skills helped shape Forever My Lady’s legendary title song.

“When Al came in, he brought in the sounds we needed to use,” Dalvin DeGrate told Soul Culture in 2011. “We liked the New Jack Swing artists he was associated with, like Guy, but we weren’t really into sounds. But Al brought in all these orchestral-type sounds and different instruments. It really strengthened the record.”

The marriage of Al B. Sure!’s dramatic soundscapes with the band’s silky smooth harmonies proved especially heady on “Forever My Lady” and the song put Jodeci on the map when it made No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100. Crucially, though, its parent album revealed Jodeci had plenty more of a similar caliber in reserve. Its classy follow-up singles “Come Talk To Me,” “I’m Still Waiting” and the sensual “Stay” all made the Top 10 of Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hot Hip-Hop Singles Chart, with “Come Talk To Me” also rising to No. 11 on the Hot 100.

First released on May 28, 1991, Forever My Lady further established Jodeci on the charts. It peaked at No. 18 on the Billboard 200 and debuted atop the Billboard R&B Albums chart. The album also attracted positive reviews, with Entertainment Weekly astutely noting: “If they can keep up the momentum of this commercially successful debut, Jodeci will be a force to be reckoned with.”

Listen to the expanded editions of Forever My Lady and Diary of a Mad Band now.

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Janet Jackson was a 16-year-old ingénue when she began her solo recording career at A&M Records in 1982. Though she scored a couple of Top 10 US R&B hits (the dancefloor grooves of 1982’s “Young Love” and ’84’s “Fast Girls”), it didn’t look like she would be able to emulate the phenomenal chart triumphs of her elder brother Michael, eight years her senior, whose popularity had reached new heights after the release of his blockbusting 1982 LP, Thriller. Certainly, no one expected her next move to kick-start a run of US No.1 albums that included 1985’s Control, 1987’s Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, and 1993’s transatlantic chart-topper, janet.

Things changed for the 19-year-old singer when she teamed up with writing and production duo Jimmy “Jam” Harris and Terry Lewis, former members of Minneapolis funk group The Time, who had helmed big US R&B hits for The SOS Band (“Just Be Good To Me”), Force MDs (“Tender Love”), Cherrelle (“I Didn’t Mean To Turn You On”), and Alexander O’Neal (“Innocent”). Though Jam and Lewis had a proven track record of delivering hits, nothing in the music industry is guaranteed, and for Janet Jackson, who was dissatisfied with her previous records, it felt like the last chance saloon, as she told this writer in 2001: “That was a point where it was like a crossroads for me in my career. If it wasn’t going to pan out, I was going to go back to school to study business law, but I thought I would try music one more time.”

This time, though, Janet desired a fresh new approach. “I wanted to do it differently than being handed a piece of music and told, ‘Here, sing this,’ which it was in the past,” she said. “I wanted to express myself, and Jimmy and Terry allowed me to do that. Jimmy and I rode around Minneapolis and we talked about my life and what I had gone through.”

These conversations became the basis for the songs they wrote together for the aptly-titled album Control. Released in January 1986, it topped both the US pop and R&B albums charts, and yielded five American R&B No.1 singles, including “What Have You Done For Me Lately.” At that point, Janet was hotter than her brother, Michael, who had yet to release a follow-up to Thriller.

Jam and Lewis had unlocked the real Janet Jackson and helped her to realize her potential. “They allowed me to open up to them and express myself,” she said. The new music, including the astounding seven hit singles lifted from Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, ignited a major-label bidding war that saw Virgin Records emerge triumphant for a purported $40 million.

After a four-year gap, janet. emerged on May 18, 1993. As with her two previous albums, it was produced by the dependable Jam and Lewis. Jackson’s rationale for having them on board was simple: “They allowed me to grow, they allowed me to blossom,” she said, “and I love working with them. The relationship that we have is just great. We’re like friends and they’re like brothers to me. We’re very close and I love what we do together. There are no egos involved.” Indeed, all of the credits on janet. – both production and writing – were divided equally between the singer and her two producers.

Though a cursory glance at janet.’s tracklisting reveals a whopping 28 cuts and seemed to indicate a sprawling sonic extravaganza that took full advantage of the CD format’s 80-minute playing time, in actual fact, there were only 12 proper songs, the rest being short interludes. The music on janet. was much more eclectic than on her previous two albums, shifting from the old-school, shuffle-beat pop-soul of “Whoops Now” to the machine-tooled New Jack Swing of “You Want This.” The guitar-led “What’ll I Do” owed a stylistic debt to rock (though the song also features R&B-style horns), while the thumping dance groove of “Funky Big Band” is peppered with old-time jazz samples.

While there are nods to the past, janet. also looks to the future with a slice of electro trance-dance called “Throb,” which features erotic moans à la Donna Summer on “Love To Love You, Baby.” Hip-hop, then the dominant currency in pop, is referenced on “New Agenda,” which features a noteworthy cameo from rap Public Enemy’s head MC, Chuck D.

Though mostly dominated by energetic dance tracks, janet. does have some moments of repose, especially toward the end of the album. “Again” – a song that appeared in the movie Poetic Justice, in which Janet Jackson appeared, alongside Tupac Shakur – is a fairly conventional R&B ballad that shows the singer’s more sensitive side. “The Body That Loves You,” meanwhile, is jazzier and more sensual, while “Any Time, Any Place” is an R&B-tinged slow jam that digs deeper into an erotic groove.

Without doubt, janet.’s centerpiece was its first single, the mesmeric groove ballad “That’s The Way Love Goes,” which won a Grammy for Best R&B Song. With its subtle, jazzy inflections and infectious chorus the song spent eight weeks at the top of the American pop charts in the summer of 1993 (it reached No.2 in the UK). The song’s success helped to propel the parent album, released in June of that year, straight to the top of the US R&B and pop albums charts. The album sales were staggering and janet. spent 106 weeks on the Billboard 200, eventually being certified sextuple-platinum by the Recording Industry Association Of America.

While Control was an assertion of self-determination and … Rhythm Nation 1814 represented a critique of social inequity, Janet was a frank and liberating celebration of the singer’s sexuality. Coming from a member of the US’s first family of entertainment, the Jacksons, who had been brought up in the strict Jehovah’s Witness faith, Janet Jackson’s frank exploration of love and sex was shocking to some. But it was fairly tame compared to the singer’s next opus, 1997’s The Velvet Rope, which delved into even darker erotic themes. Even so, janet. represents an important milestone in Janet Jackson’s evolution, both as a person and a recording artist.

Listen to Janet Jackson’s janet. now.

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Born on May 16, 1966, Janet Jackson launched her solo career in 1982 and is reported to have sold over 100 million records since. After launching her Las Vegas residency Metamorphosis last year, she said the shows delineated her own “path to self-love, empowerment, motherhood, and activism, amid the challenges… faced along her personal journey” – something the best Janet Jackson songs have done throughout her career.

In honour of Janet Jackson’s achievements, we present a countdown of the 20 best Janet Jackson songs.

20: No Sleeep (2015)

In 2015 Janet Jackson released her 11th album, Unbreakable, her first for her own label, Rhythm Nation. Reuniting her with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, with whom she hadn’t worked since 2006, it immediately set the US charts alight. “No Sleeep” finds Jackson doing what she does best: sounding seductive on a nocturnal groove that she wrote with Jam and Lewis, and which also features US rapper J. Cole. The song climbed all the way to the top of the US Adult R&B Songs chart.

19: The Pleasure Principle (1986)

Written by ex-Time keyboardist Monte Moir, who in 1985 had written Alexander O’Neal’s killer bedroom ballad, “If You Were Here Tonight,” “The Pleasure Principle” was a bubbling, synth-driven dance groove whose style was more nuanced and less rambunctious than Control’s Jam & Lewis-helmed dance tracks. It also featured a rock-style guitar solo from The Time’s Jellybean Johnson. Issued as Control’s sixth single, it shot to No.1 in the US R&B charts, instantly cementing its place among the best Janet Jackson songs.

18: Alright (1989)

Propelled by a thunderous swing-beat groove and peppered with samples, “Alright” was the fourth single taken from the Rhythm Nation 1814 album. A song about romantic bliss, “Alright” adhered to the formula that defined her Jam & Lewis-era material, welding an irresistible chorus and sweetly harmonized vocals to a pummeling rhythm track.

17: I Get Lonely (1997)

Featuring stellar background vocals from R&B supergroup Blackstreet, “I Get Lonely” was another example of Jackson’s ability to create immersive storytelling romantic ballads. This time, the music had a gospel undertone and a purer R&B sound. Written by Jackson together with Jam and Lewis, plus her then-husband, René Elizondo, Jr, the tune was the third single from The Velvet Rope and topped the US R&B charts in 1998. Its place among the best Janet Jackson songs was forever assured when it became her 18th consecutive Top 10 US smash, a feat that had never been achieved before by a female recording artist.

16: Scream (1995)

By the time that Janet Jackson got to duet with her elder brother, Michael, she was a superstar in her own right. “Scream” put the “King Of Pop” in the studio with his sister’s producers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who co-wrote the song with both Jackson siblings. Living up to its title, “Scream” is a boisterous swing-beat style groove and appeared on Michael Jackson’s 1995 compilation, HIStory: Past, Present & Future, Book 1.

15: Any Time, Any Place (1997)

Topping the US R&B singles chart in 1997, “Any Time, Any Place” is an atmospheric quiet storm ballad on which Janet Jackson shows a more sensual facet of her personality against a gentle backdrop of lush, shimmering keyboards. The song was co-written by the singer with her co-producers, Jam and Lewis, who had a hand in many of the best Janet Jackson songs; it became the fifth single lifted from her eponymous Virgin Records’ debut, janet.

14: The Best Things In Life Are Free (1992)

In between her Rhythm Nation and janet albums, Jackson duetted with silky-voiced soul crooner Luther Vandross on this upbeat Jam & Lewis-helmed tune, which was taken from the soundtrack to the film Mo’ Money, a comedy starring siblings Damon and Marlon Wayans. The tune was co-written by Jackson’s producers with former New Edition members Michael Bivins and Ronnie DeVoe (then two-thirds of the group Bell Biv DeVoe) and was nominated for a Grammy. It also spent a week at the top of the US R&B charts.

13: Together Again (1997)

This was the second single taken from Jackson’s 1997 album, The Velvet Rope, a frank confessional that addressed the singer’s purported battle with depression as well as subjects ranging from domestic violence to sexual identity. Lighter in tone, though, is “Together Again,” a pop-dance excursion with hints of Motown and house music in its musical DNA. Though the song made No.8 on the US R&B chart, it rose to No.1 in the Hot 100. It was popular, too, in the UK, where it peaked at No.4.

12: Control (1986)

“When I was 17, I did what people told me,” sings Janet Jackson on this, the title track from her platinum-selling 1986 album, adding, “Did what my father said, and let my mother mold me… but that was a long time ago.” Not as in your face as “Nasty,” “Control, with its twitchy sequenced rhythms, still packed a sonic punch. Sounding a little like a Time track with female vocals, it is a paean to independence and reflects the singer’s desire to express herself freely. It was also Jackson’s fourth single from the Control album and her third to top the US R&B charts.

11: Whoops Now (1993)

An old-school Motown feel pervades this, one of Janet Jackson’s catchiest songs. Though featuring on the tracklist of UK and Japanese pressings of janet, in the US it was a hidden track on the US CD version. “Whoops Now” didn’t get issued as a single in America, but overseas, where it was released separately, it performed well, topping the pop charts in New Zealand and making the Top 10 in France, Austria, Belgium, and the UK.

10: Got Til It’s Gone (1997)

This song’s title took its inspiration directly from Joni Mitchell’s 1970 protest song “Big Yellow Taxi,” whose chorus (“You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone”) it sampled. Riding on a mellow, hip-hop-inspired groove, Jackson – who had started presenting herself as Janet, rather than Janet Jackson – is accompanied by A Tribe Called Quest rapper Q-Tip. The track reached No.3 on the US R&B charts and No.6 in the UK.

9: Miss You Much (1989)

Three years after Control, Janet Jackson reconvened with Jam and Lewis in their Flyte Tyme Studios in Minneapolis to record Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814. Thematically a much deeper album than Control, it focused on pressing socio-political issues, but, singles-wise, kicked off with a pining love song, “Miss You Much.” The song was delivered via a hammering dance groove that reprised the aggressive style and sparse sonics of Control. It also put Janet Jackson back at the top of both the US pop and R&B singles chart in September 1989.

8: All For You (2001)

This catchy dance number – which samples disco group Change’s 1980 hit “The Glow Of Love” – was the first single and title song from Janet’s double-platinum 2001 album. Its bright and optimistic tone was indicative of the album’s lighter mood compared with the darker hues that characterised her controversial previous album, The Velvet Rope. It also illustrated Jackson’s willingness to experiment and take creative risks. Reaching No.1 in the US (and No.3 in the UK), the song was Jackson’s 14th R&B chart-topper.

7: Escapade (1989)

Despite its focus on social justice, the Rhythm Nation album had a few lighter moments, epitomised by the aptly-titled “Escapade,” a carefree love song driven by a chugging steam-hammer of a backbeat. Like the earlier “When I Think Of You,” it showed that Janet Jackson could make buoyant crossover pop without sacrificing her R&B credibility. The song topped both the pop and R&B singles charts in the US.

6: Rhythm Nation (1989)

Janet Jackson’s sixth consecutive US R&B No.1 single, “Rhythm Nation” found the singer and her producers tapping into the relentless syncopated rhythms associated with the New Jack Swing phenomenon, then a very influential component in US R&B. There was also a pronounced hip-hop element in the music due to its sampled beats and orchestral “hits.” A rallying protest song themed around uniting through music to achieve social justice and “break the colour lines,” “Rhythm Nation” not only hit No.1 on the R&B chart, but also soared to No.2 on the pop chart.

5: Nasty (1986)

“My first name ain’t Baby, it’s Janet… Miss Jackson if you’re nasty.” So sang an angry-sounding Janet Jackson on “Nasty,” her second consecutive No.1 single in the US R&B charts, and not only one of the best Janet Jackson songs, but one of the best songs of the era. Sonically, the song was distinctive: driven by pounding, industrial-like drum-machine rhythms and metallic synth lines enunciating catchy licks. Contrasting with this harsh, almost robotic backing is an arresting human element in the shape of Jackson’s girlish voice. An eye-grabbing video depicting Jackson going through some vigorous but carefully choreographed dance moves in the company of male dancers helped to widen the song’s popularity.

4: When I Think Of You (1986)

Like all the uptempo songs on Control, “When I Think Of You” boasted a tough archetypal 80s dance beat, but, in essence, the song was much less aggressive than “Nasty,” which preceded it as a single. “When I Think Of You” is essentially a euphoric love song based on two alternating piano chords and driven by a mobile bassline. Jackson’s vocals, punctuated by blasts of synth brass, are sweet but never cloying. Despite being one of Control’s catchiest tunes, it failed to top the US R&B charts, stalling at No.2, but went all the way to the top of the US pop charts, giving Janet Jackson her first crossover No.1.

3: Let’s Wait Awhile (1986)

A beautiful ballad co-written by Janet Jackson with her co-producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, this song – together with another fine slow jam, “Funny How Time Flies (When You’re Having Fun)” – represented an oasis of calm on Control, an otherwise noisy, chest-beating album. After the strident “Nasty,” “Let’s Wait Awhile”’s serenity comes almost as a relief, putting into sharp relief the demure sweetness of Janet’s voice. The fifth single taken from Control, “Let’s Wait Awhile,” was her fourth US R&B chart-topper and reached No.3 in the UK.

2: What Have You Done For Me Lately (1986)

Janet Jackson’s transformation from a demure ingénue into a sassy sex kitten came about through her alliance in Minneapolis with ex-Time members Jimmy “Jam” Harris and Terry Lewis during 1985, when they recorded her third A&M album, Control. This was her debut hit from the album: Jackson’s purported response to the break-up of her marriage with James DeBarge. Sonically, it’s a throbbing chunk of propulsive techno-funk boasting an infectious chorus and garnished with slivers of jazzy piano. Janet’s her debut US R&B chart-topper, “What Have You Done For Me Lately” was also her first hit in the UK, rising to No.3. The Control album went platinum, topping both the US pop and R&B charts.

1: That’s The Way Love Goes (1993)

Janet Jackson’s switch to Virgin, in 1991, lured from A&M by the promise of a $40 million contract, paid instant dividends with this, her debut single for her new label. Topping our list of the best Janet Jackson songs, “That’s The Way Love Goes” spent four weeks at the top of the US R&B chart and two months at the top of America’s bestselling pop singles chart, the Hot 100. Contrary to what some may have expected given her previous form with banging dance cuts, the song was a soft, mellow ballad distinguished by subtle jazz inflections and a hypnotic groove. It was the first single culled from janet, her third album collaboration with Jam and Lewis. The song also put Jackson back in the UK Top 10 (it peaked at No.2) for the first time since 1987’s “Let’s Wait Awhile.”

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In the summer of 1986, brothers D’Wayne Wiggins, Charles Ray Wiggins (professionally known as Raphael Saadiq), and their cousin Timothy Christian Riley joined forces to create one of the most emblematic male R&B troupes of all time. Throughout R&B’s history, there’s been a lineage of successful male groups each era from The Isley Brothers, to The Gap Band, to New Edition and Guy, to Boyz II Men and Jodeci, then Dru Hill and 112. Yet, Tony! Toni! Toné! distinguished themselves by their unique ability to interpolate Oakland’s rugged sonic signatures in an unpredictable way, resulting in timeless music.

Tony! Toni! Toné!’s sound was a culmination of the influences stemming from the Bay Area streets, mixed with a hearty gospel foundation. In spite of the rising dominance of a more hip-hop/rap leaning sound during Tony! Toni! Toné!’s early years, the group combined New Jack Swing, rhythm & blues, and gospel, which led to great success. Unlike their peer groups, the Tonies embraced the duality of current and vintage through musicality, lyrical content, and good old technique – something others strayed away from or failed to execute.

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What began as a familial hobby turned into a classic story of what happens when opportunity and preparation align. The Wiggins household could easily be compared to the Jackson family’s as a fertile ground for blossoming talent. D’Wayne and Raphael’s father, Charlie, was a blues guitarist, and instruments were scattered all over their home. Unable to read music, the budding musicians taught themselves. “Raphael, Tim, and Carl Wheeler (keyboard) had more of the real Baptist church sound with them. [The streets of Oakland and the church scene is] where we really honed our skills as musicians,” D’Wayne shared in a 2016 interview with Wax Poetics.

In an interview two years later, Saadiq reminisced on falling in love with the bass via Marvin Gaye’s “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You).” He stated, “my favorite toy was the bass. I had a race car set and stuff, and I’d play with them, but for the most part my bass was my G.I. Joe.” D’Wayne started his own band, Alpha Omega, which he labeled “the Earth, Wind & Fire of Oakland,” and Saadiq’s first band was the Gospel Hummingbirds. Timothy and Raphael played drums and bass, respectively, in a separate band. Soon after, D’Wayne joined gospel great Tramaine Hawkins on tour, while Raphael and Timothy joined Sheila E. on the road, opening for Prince. When they’d completed their respective individual treks, the live entertainment version of college, they came together to form Tony! Toni! Tone!.

It was the late 80s, and Ed Eckstine, founder of Wing/Mercury, wanted to sign a band, but bands were going out of fashion. Advances in production changed the style and the cost of making music, so Eckstine held off. At the time, Tony! Toni! Tone! was a rare group that built their sound around elements of live instrumentation, instead of samples. Generally, their structure started with the guitar, then drums, piano, and lyrics. It’s unclear when Eckstine first heard about Tony! Toni! Tone!, but when the hit production team and childhood friends of the band, Denzel Foster and Thomas McElroy, told Eckstine they were going to produce the group, Eckstine, leaning on the team’s proven track record of success, bought in.

Another key factor in them getting signed was that they were, as D’Wayne described to Wax Poetics, “a self-contained band.” He explained, “we had our show together long before we got a record deal. We performed our songs onstage doing cartwheels and splits and everything else. We just brought everything we had to the table and it really worked for us.”

Their 1988 debut single, “Little Walter,” a transformative, updated flip of the spiritual “Wade In The Water” from their thought-provokingly titled album, Who?, was an unconventional choice to introduce themselves. However, taking the road less traveled paid off; it became the group’s first chart-topping hit, spending a week at No. 1 on the R&B charts. By their sophomore effort The Revival, the Tonies had taken their sound and creative direction entirely into their own hands, breaking away from Foster & McElroy to self-produce the LP themselves. The lead single, blues/hip-hop crossover jam “Feels Good,” propelled them to the Top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100 and set the course for their first platinum plaque.

Critics proclaim The Revival as the first true Tony! Toni! Toné! album. The new jack swing/soul hybrid, plus their more mature follow-up Sons of Soul, firmly cemented the Bay Area natives’ R&B legacy. They drew inspiration from the popular sounds of the late 80s and early 90s – blues, dance-pop, new jack swing, funk, neo-soul – through hits across the two albums: “Feels Good,” 1993’s “If I Had No Loot,” the relatable classic (albeit probably untrue), “It Never Rains (In Southern California),” the widely-sampled (over 18 times) “Whatever You Want,” their seminal Grammy-nominated hit “Anniversary” in 1993, and 1994’s “(Lay Your Head On My) Pillow,” created with a “country-influenced pedal steel guitar after [hearing] a country band used it at Paradise Recording Studio, where they recorded the song.”

The trio didn’t force changes in their sound to follow musical trends. They openly embraced various influences and created music for the sake of the art— not an easy feat when also striving for commercial success. Instead of outsourcing to a collection of songwriters and producers, as had become standard for groups in the early 90s, the Tonies remained autonomous by keeping everything (vocals, writing, instrumentation, and production) in-house. D’Wayne applauded his group for remaining open-minded. In a 2018 interview with The Chicago Tribune, he reflected, “a lot of writers and very seasoned musicians stay stuck in their zone and don’t want to branch out and don’t want to accept when it’s new. I like pulling it into the fold.”

With Who?, they found their professional footing, and then pushed themselves to evolve and improve with The Revival and Sons of Soul. They took risks, experimented, and held to what felt authentic for them as artists. Their final studio album, House of Music, was a masterful journey through their collective sonic influences, ranging from vintage soulful moments like the Al Green-esque “Thinking of You,” to West Coast funk jams like “Let’s Get Down,” to signature Tony love songs like “Lovin’ You.” It was a quintessential Tony! Toni! Toné! album, a fitting close on the group’s chapter as a collective.

Tony! Toni! Toné! should be credited as vanguards of their era for the artistic boldness of refusing to restrict themselves to one style of R&B and ignoring formulas. They referred to themselves as “real soul,” and cultivated their sound in a way that even as their styles changed, their music was still immediately identifiable. Saadiq told Pitchfork, “I’ve always wanted my music to be like great furniture. Something you can go back to and reuse all the time.” Few acts have successfully glided through transitions as easily. Their commitment to the music – instead of the moment – led to a body of work that sounded fresh and relevant as R&B transitioned from New Jack Swing to hip-hop soul to neo-soul and beyond, influencing acts like Donnell Jones, Musiq Soulchild, Angie Stone, D’Angelo, and H.E.R..

There were also a host of acts who’ve used the Tonies’ vast catalog as a foundation for updated spins on oldies-but-goodies, such as “Soul of A Woman” by Kelly Price (1998), “Temptation” by Destiny’s Child (1999), “Tonight” by Teyana Taylor (2015), and “Whatever You Need” by Meek Mill featuring Chris Brown and Ty Dolla $ign (2017). And Raphael Saadiq still actively influences the current music landscape; most recently as co-executive producer of Solange’s critically-acclaimed LP, A Seat At The Table in 2016, and he became one of the first music supervisors for HBO’s hit show Insecure, also in 2016.

Although Tony! Toni! Toné! only recorded four studio albums as a group, the legacy and foundation they created as a chart-topping, critically-acclaimed band are reflected in the timelessness of their greatest hits. They aimed to make music that simply makes people feel, whether it’s the first time or the 50th.

Black Music Reframed is an ongoing editorial series on uDiscover Music that seeks to encourage a different lens, a wider lens, a new lens, when considering Black music; one not defined by genre parameters or labels, but by the creators. Sales and charts and firsts and rarities are important. But artists, music, and moments that shape culture aren’t always best-sellers, chart-toppers, or immediate successes. This series, which centers Black writers writing about Black music, takes a new look at music and moments that have previously either been overlooked or not had their stories told with the proper context. Originally published in 2020, we are republishing this article today in celebration of Raphael Saadiq’s birthday.

Browse the music of Tony! Toni! Toné! on limited edition vinyl and CDs here.

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With two releases in 1980, Teena Marie was on a roll, hitting her stride as one of Motown’s rising stars. She had two Top 10 R&B hits under her belt, a Top 10 R&B album, and street credibility unlike any white artist before her; credibility earned not just from Rick James’ endorsement, but the messaging in her music and poetry which made her alignment with Black culture and politics clear.

She spent the end of 1980 and the beginning of 1981 in the studio trading musical favors with James: she contributed vocals to his Street Songs album, and he contributed to her project that would become known to the world in May 1981 as It Must Be Magic.

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Musically, It Must Be Magic is a symphonic tsunami of sound with out-of-this-world string and horn arrangements, unforgettable bass lines, and intricate percussion. A fusion of players from Ozone, James’ Stone City Band, and Punk Funk Horns added their touch to Magic alongside top session players like Paulinho Da Costa, Gerald Albright, and Patrice Rushen.

The album’s first and biggest single, “Square Biz” is Teena’s declaration of her musical and cultural vision. In a rap – something she decided to do after hearing Blondie’s “Rapture” while working on Magic – Teena name drops everyone and everything that inspired her: gospel music, Nikki Giovanni, Sarah Vaughan, and her godmother’s collard greens. The song shot to #3 on the R&B chart, catapulted the album to the #2 position on the R&B Album chart, and earned her first gold record. The album pays homage to her roots, down to its back cover shot on Venice Beach with a rainbow coalition of children.

While the album’s two subsequent singles, the title track and the sultry “Portuguese Love,” would stall at #30 and #54 on the R&B singles chart, respectively, “Portuguese Love,” “Where’s California” and the heart-wrenching “Yes Indeed” would all become enduring Quiet Storm classics.

Teena utilized poetry in the album’s liner notes to contemplate the physical and psychic violence of racism. It Must Be Magic spoke to the problems of the past, present, and future. Mourning the murder of John Lennon, she scoffed at the accessibility of guns and the killing of progressive political figures in “Revolution,” dedicating the album – her last Motown effort – to Lennon, John and Robert Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In so doing, Teena embodied a boundary-lessness of spirit that defied man-made notions of color, culture, and identity.

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Corinne Bailey Rae’s signature tune is undoubtedly “Put Your Records On,” which combines folksy lullabies and ear-worm pop hooks with soulful, jazzy sensibilities. But the yearning ballad “Do You Ever Think of Me” from 2016’s The Heart Speaks in Whispers is just as remarkable. Connecting soul music’s past with its present, this song interpolates the melody of Curtis Mayfield’s “The Makings of You.” But while Mayfield’s gorgeous melody shapes the early parts of “Do You Ever Think of Me,” Bailey Rae ultimately diverts from it. Her dulcet, supple voice guides the listener to an extended outro with hypnotic repetitions of the title lyric.

Bailey Rae co-wrote the song with Valerie Simpson of famed recording and songwriting duo Ashford and Simpson. With her late husband Nickolas Ashford, Simpson wrote stone-cold classics for the likes of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell (“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”) Diana Ross (“The Boss”), and Chaka Khan (“I’m Every Woman”). Having already met some years prior at Ashford and Simpson’s Sugar Bar club in New York City, Bailey Rae and Simpson discussed collaborating after crossing paths at a MusiCares concert in 2015. They bonded over their shared experiences of loss and tragedy: Bailey Rae’s first husband Jason Rae died in 2008 after an accidental overdose, while Simpson lost her husband in 2011 to throat cancer.

Speaking to MOJO in 2016, Bailey Rae recalled receiving an email from Simpson after first playing her “Do You Ever Think of Me”. “[Valerie had] attached a file of her singing my song, but her version of the song, adding her own lyrics, and these amazing piano chords under where she sang ‘Why did it have to end?’ She’d smashed it,” Bailey Rae says. They finished writing the song at Simpson’s home.

“It touched my heart because it was the first time I had attempted to partner with somebody [other than] my late husband,” Simpson told me in an interview. She noted how Bailey Rae’s voice has a similar “sweetness” to Mayfield’s. “It can be soft and sensual and strong and soulful,” she explained, reflecting fondly on when she performed the song with Bailey Rae in New York City.

“Do You Ever Think of Me” is the product of an intergenerational dialogue: A key protagonist of 21st-century soul music joining forces with one of the genre’s veteran songwriters, while honoring the work of another soul legend. The results are magical.

Listen to Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Do You Ever Think of Me” now.

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