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Juslisen, Johnson's second album - credited to simply Musiq - followed in May 2002 with creative improvements that resulted in even greater success. Written with Carvin Haggins and Andre Harris, and produced by Harris and Vidal Davis, it helped the album reach platinum status and was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. Recorded mostly at DJ Jazzy Jeff's hometown A Touch of Jazz studio, Aijuswanaseing also contained "Love," a number two R&B hit that made impact in December. The song hit the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop chart that September, reached number six, and was featured on Aijuswanaseing, an album released two months later. Johnson debuted in 2000 with "Just Friends (Sunny)," which first appeared on the soundtrack for Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. He honed his stagecraft at open-mike events and at showcases hosted by the Five Spot and Wilhemina's until his management team, Jerome Hipps and Michael McArthur (aka Mama's Boys), facilitated a deal with Def Jam's Def Soul subsidiary. During the 2010s, he stretched out stylistically and went independent without wavering from his soul base.Īs a fledgling young artist who, at first, did not intend to enter the music industry, Johnson performed wherever he could, including the streets, at schools, and even in galleries.
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One of the steadiest singers and songwriters in his field, he earned 11 Grammy nominations evenly spread across a decade. Additionally inspired by the contemporary likes of D'Angelo and Lauryn Hill, he applied his musical upbringing to a love for noncommercial hip-hop and refined his romantic and affable everyman style across a string of six major-label albums, four of which went either gold or platinum in the U.S. The Philadelphia-born Taalib Johnson grew up in a household that provided him with an education in '70s soul. There are alluring sonic details spread along the two discs - a nearly prog-rock guitar at the start of Test Drive, big band drums launching Sooner or Later, an Isaac Hayeslike soul feel on Start Over and a guitar-piano combination that screams Radiohead on Hard Liquor - but sometimes they taper off deeper into the songs, dissolving some of their appeal.Īlbum closer Simple Things contains a few elements some of the other songs could have benefited from in larger doses - an instrumental solo and about 20 seconds of stripped-down vocals which charm with their beauty and, duh, simplicity.Ĭlearly, there's a lot of music in Musiq Soulchild these days - he also released an album in 2016 - and, despite some excesses, Feel the Real reaffirms him as a dependable source of quality R&B, hip-hop, soul or whatever category he's into or placed in at this moment.Musiq Soulchild was among a crop of R&B artists who arrived during the 2000s with no debt to the flashy and sexually aggressive sounds that prevailed throughout the preceding decade.
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Musiq Soulchild, Feel the Real (eOne Music)īesides its double-album length, the most ear-catching aspect of Musiq Soulchild's Feel the Real is the chance to hear the Philadelphia-born artist during nearly every moment of his eighth album.įeel the Real is long, dense and mostly fulfilling, but Musiq's omnipresence also requires commitment to get through its more than 97 minutes at once.ĭoubling down on varied aspects of love and romance, from the popular theme of friends with Benefits and the insistent-but-not-in-a-stalking-kind-of-way persistence of Sooner or Later, to the Stevie Wonder-sounding Like the Weather and its determination to outlast the forecast, to the head-over-heels passionate abandon of the title track, the man born Taalib Johnson has crafted an often truly spectacular set.Īs with many, if not most, double albums, quality control seems to slip a bit on the second disc, despite its highlights.