Sugar Water
90’s R&B mean a whole lot of different things to a lot of people. They mean different things to me. There was an eruption built on New Jack Swing, and R&B from decades before. They came with an attitude, with style and with something previous years didn’t have; Hip Hop. If the blending began in the 80’s, it was perfected in the 90’s. In the decade of my teenage years, R&B taught me about cool, party, love, passion, sex, romance, and sadness. Genre aside, sad songs in our adolescence, fuse to our D.N.A. and reemerge at many sad intervals throughout our lives.
For years music writers and thinkers have been commenting on popular music getting sadder as time mints new influential voices. Sad music persists because we all have those feelings within us, and we’ve all felt the catharsis of singing along with your favorite anthem of sadness, while your cheeks are puffy, the salt of your tears stings the corners of your lips, and snot bubbles inflate out of your nostrils. Right now I’m imagining myself repeating this scene around middle school, locked in my bedroom, the window to my backyard, my only audience, belting along with Mary J. Blige, going all the way down, down, down.
90’s R&B taught me the cool of Isaac Hayes's A Few More Kisses to Go, way before I knew it came from Hayes, but I fell in love with that slow step hop from Blackstreet’s Tonight’s The Night, feat. Tammy Lucas. I’d strut down Southern Blvd, still trying to learn how to walk in Timberlands without getting them dirty. I don’t think I ever mastered that art. Awkward as I might’ve been, songs like that gave me a shield a of cool, if only in my head, if only in three to four minutes.
90’s R&B taught me so much sex, even if most were misguided lessons I affixed to a contrived masculine veil. But I was at the age where I was feeling things. While songs like Silk’s Freak Me, Jodeci’s Freek’n You, and Adina Howard’s Freak Like Me, were definitely not intended for my young ears, they imparted a specific idea of sex in me. I still regularly listen to H-Town’s Knockin' da Boots, even though that one was always tongue and cheek. Boyz II Men’s I’ll Make Love To You, showed me a softer more romantic vision of sex, TLC’s Red Light Special married the perfect blend of sensuality, with their brand of Crazy, Sexy, Cool. That’s the type of sexy I wanted to be, guitar solo and all.
90’s R&B hasn’t been top of my charts for a long while, but sometimes I get that urge to revisit all those old messy feelings. To go and sit in that time, with those songs, and just simmer for a bit. This past summer, I had the pleasure of coming across a new album that felt clever and fresh and a great ode to the vibes of 90’s R&B with big twist of Neo Soul. Everything felt new intertwined with the old which was always intertwined with the even older. Casablanco by Marsha Ambrosius took me back to the 90’s, back to my 20’s in the 2000’s, and back to all these feelings. All this from someone how I hadn’t heard from in a very long time.
My first encounter with Marsha’s music was as apart of her 2000’s Spoken Word R&B Duo Floetry. On July 12 2005, I was lucky enough to be taken to a concert by a dear friend who tragically pass away seven years later. Luciana was a singer from England who grew up loving R&B and Soul and followed in those giant footsteps of her heroes, all fearless and courageous. She was quite an amazing human, and although in the grand scheme of our lives, we didn’t spend that much time together, the moments we shared were deeply impressed in my psyche. So back in 2005 I was super into The White Stripes, while she was Deeply into Neo Soul and R&B. That summer I suggested she take me to a concert and I take her to one of my choosing. Her outing was the Sugar Water Festival, on a warm mid July day with the cool salty air of the Atlantic Ocean at the Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh Long Island. It was a perfect evening where Floetry opened for Queen Latifah, Jill Scott and The High Piscean Monarch herself, Erykah Badu. Pure Magic. Floetry opened for some serious juggernauts, and still left an indelible impression. After that night, I didn’t follow Floetry or Marsha’s career closely, so this year’s album came as a pleasant surprise to me. Something new with something familiar.
Just so I don’t leave you hanging, right after that summer came to an end, on September 25 2005 I took Luciana to the home of the Brooklyn Cyclones, Keyspan Park (later called MCU Park and now Maimonides Park) to The Shins open up for The White Stripes during their Get Behind Me Satan tour. I had a blast, even though Luciana wore really nice heeled boots, to a General Admission show at a minor league baseball field on a chilly Coney Island night, and eventually had to watch the concert from the bleachers. Casablanco brought me all the way back to that time. I miss her.
Casablanco flows perfectly on a Sunday morning, so for this week’s offering, I hope you can transport back, or maybe get a taste of something you never knew. Just know this is a sincere ode to the smooth sexy cool. Dr. Dre produced this album, and it was a bit hard to understand at times because of all the East Coast style of production with orchestral R&B laid under 90’s Hip Hop Beats. I’m not going to name every sample, but your ears might ring with familiarity, even though you might not be able to place ever drop. This very theatrical album feels like a Baz Luhrmann-esque style of mashing styles to create a soundscape of choreographed frenzy. Here’s how the tracks land on me.
Side A
1. Smoke starts with a classic radio voice narrator intro, going to Jazz overture and finally getting into a wild ass track, setting the mood for the rest of the vibe and then settling into a smoother texture. It travels so much, while Marsha hits us with serious flow and a powerful voice.
2. Tuinisian Nights goes from Cabaret, to orchestral, to NY State of Mind, and a little Shooby Dooby Dooping that reminds me of a Mary J. song. Marsha’s voice flexes a dare, to throw any genre at her and she ready.
3. One Night Stand gives me some more Mary J’s Mary Jane (All Night Long), but that song had Mary Jane Girls and Teddy Pendergrass on it but I didn’t know that when My Life dropped, so it’s that Mary J joint to me. Looking up the samples for this album is really fun, and I would highly recommend it.
4. Cloudy With A Chance Of_Real has the Sax part from that Lords of the Underground song, but again you wouldn’t know it from the start, because it begins in that Jazz mode, and just keeps opening itself revealing more and more. Marsha is opening her whole heart. The song settles in a more West Coast Funk melody and I remember Dr. Dre’s on this.
5. Greedy By the time I got to this one, this time around, I’m suddenly realizing this album has way more Jazz than I previously recognized. I was blinded by the light of the 90’s, and didn’t see how back this music really takes us. Needless to say this track begins with some beautiful jazz before Marsha gets Greedy about it. She conveys so many sides of a single face. It’s fascinating to listen to her just switch modes, or rather dissuade us of the idea that these modes aren’t all the same. End of the side. Time to flip the record.
Side B
6. Self Care / Wrong Right Side B begins with a little Stevie Wonder, makes us look twice, goes into Jazz, and back to R&B. These are first minute antics. The rest of the song gives us an epic wrapped in a few minutes. Someone make this into a musical. Give it a decade or two, I’ll be there opening night.
7. Wet This is that Sexy song I was too young to listen to. That didn’t stop me this time either.
8. Thrill Her Wu Tang Clan aint nothing to fuck with. And neither is Casablanco. Baby are you okay? Are you okay Baby?
9. The Greatest Perry Mason’s never been this sexy. I went back and watched and I assure you it has never been this hot. Maybe the Matthew Rhys reboot got close, but no Cohiba amigo. This is the greatest.
10. Best I Could Find is so so smooth with a real sadness to it. This song creates a very interesting dichotomy where I’m so sad for her but just straight vibing in luxury. I dig it.
11. Music Of My Mind is Marsha’s literal ode to all the music that shaped her. This is a poem, this is a potpourri, this is her sincerity amassed. A litany of gratitude. I listen to this one a few times to try to catch all her shout outs and easter eggs. It’s a great way to end the explosion of cool that is this record.
I hope you enjoyed Casablanco, and I don’t know how to help you if you didn’t. This was fun. Thanks for joining me on Sunday Morning Records See ya next week.
