En Vogue: Dawn or Rhona?

On June 24th, 2008, the BET Awards were abuzz when a reformed En Vogue took the stage with their fellow 1990's female R&B compatriots SWV and TLC. Cindy Herron-Braggs, Maxine Jones, Terry Ellis, and Dawn Robinson sashayed into their classic "Hold On" without a hiccup. Unlike many of the people watching that evening, my thoughts immediately drifted to a woman named Rhona Bennett, who has been a working member of En Vogue since 2004.

I thought: "What about the sixth record they've been working on with Bennett?," "What about the July 18th, 2008 show in Detroit I'm going to? Will it be Rhona on that stage, or Dawn?" For the majority, these thoughts didn't enter into the equation. Even those that celebrated Bennett's added chemistry to En Vogue probably preferred Robinson's second return to the fold. Bennett again stepped aside graciously to allow for the original line-up to pique the imagination of 1990's soul fans everywhere. However, as the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

In this instance En Vogue recorded with Bennett (Soul Flower, 2004), toured with Bennett, and despite the first Robinson reunion in 2005 for the VH-1 Hip Hop Honors Award ceremony, Bennett remained a dedicated member. Bennett can't keep getting shuffled around when a "nostalgia moment" is aroused. More importantly, how can the group restructure itself seriously when the group continues to not take a position on who is in or out? What are the variables in having Robinson return or Bennett remain?

Classic
Dawn Robinson is a founding member of this group, that alone means there is a chemistry she has with the other members that no one else can. If Robinson, Herron-Braggs, Ellis, and Jones can iron out their financial and creative differences, which typically stalled reunion talks, it'd prove fruitful.

Capturing their particular magic and contemporizing it without losing themselves to overt modernization would show staying power.

However, Robinson is known for her ego making her the musical equivalent of Shannon Doherty. Departures from En Vogue and Lucy Pearl respectively to embark upon half-baked attempts at solo stardom have failed miserably in creative, commercial, and critical quarters. It makes me wonder about Robinson's angle to rejoin En Vogue. Is it out of actual aspiration to be with the group again or a final chance at limelight that being with En Vogue will bring?

Current
Bennett's experienced presence on En Vogue's last LP Soul Flower (2004) was welcome. Initially taking Maxine Jones place Bennett's  vocal  added a different nuance to En Vogue, but  fit into their style equally. When Jones did return Bennett stayed on, bringing En Vogue to quartet status. En Vogue who had spent most of their time as a trio seemed energized as a four-piece again. Their live shows the past three years are known for fans walking away appreciating how Bennett's look and sound factor into En Vogue perfectly.

Bennett also wants to be in En Vogue, not because it serves as a particular platform for her solo advancement, but because she genuinely enjoys being a member. Sadly, Rhona Bennett isn't Dawn Robinson and theirin lies the conflict. Due to this, most will prefer an original line-up to the new and improved one.


I've enjoyed En Vogue's trajectory, despite any commercial setbacks, they've continued to stay creative in their music and reinvent their approach. It's akin to 1970's era Supremes.

I hope that people can see beyond their nostalgia and acknowledge that latter day En Vogue has their own power. One could always hope that they could become a quintet. I can dream can't I?.-QH

 

Jody Watley's "Affection" Toward Independence

Jody Watley's departure from MCA Records in 1994, after seven years of recording there, can be viewed as a blessing in disguise. Watley was free to pursue (without interference) her creative paths into music. Watley set-up her own independent imprint Avitone Records and went about recording her fifth LP, Affection.

In her 1996 retrospective collection Jody Watley: Greatest Hits, Watley described her inventive passions, commercial frustrations, and possible fan confusion: "(There) had been a major change in my life...it reflected my evolution as a woman, an artist, and a writer who was still growing. Jheryl Busby* was gone, and I lacked someone at the record company who understood my vision, where I was trying to go. Every artist needs that. I was trying to capture the warmth of music from the '70's, to get more into that classic soul vein. The side of me influenced by Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye was starting to come out, so it (Affairs of the Heart) wasn't as danceable as the previous two albums. I might have confused some fans."

In addition to pairing with producer Derrick Edmonson, an eclectic assemblage of musical talent gathered for Affection: Angelo Earl (acoustic & electric guitars), Dwight Sills, Morris O'Connor (acoustic guitar, guitar) Glenn "Arthur" McKinney (guitar, keyboards), Tory Ruffin (guitar), Lily Haydn (violin), Keith Crouch (strings, Moog synthesizer, drums), David Jackson (accordion), Rodney Lee (Fender Rhodes, keyboards), Dwight Sills (guitar), Stan Sargent, Felton Cole, Jr. (bass), Brannen Temple (drums), Dirk "Masta C" Brown (vinyl scratches), Yvette Cason and Tammy Sales (background vocals).

Affection had similar aims that Affairs of the Heart and Intimacy did by splicing retro and contemporary black music flairs. However, Affection was very terra firma in its R&B presentation as apparent in the striking sprawl of "The Ways (Parts 1 & 2)." Two movements, the first a sensual narrative, the second an instrumental free-for-all, merged into a conduit of heavy funk. Starting with a steady drum pop, the door was kicked down as Watley painted over the percussive force with the steamy lyric: "It's the way he moves it. Oh, you like the way he...funks."

Treks throughout Affection revealed the hazy and funked up reworking of "Together" from Intimacy as "(We Gotta Be) Together." It retained its Quiet Storm burn, but with the tempo knocked up a few notches. Still present as a songwriter there was "Faithful," its strength left the other ballads on the album as pretty, but ineffective next to Watley's plea of monogamy, understanding, and respect.

 Recorded live in 1994 at the Osaka Blue Note in Japan, a return to her first hit "Looking For a New Love" featured as a bonus track. Sexy and strong still, it was playful when Watley quipped "I kept the ring!" in this rendition. The title track, and lead single, started with Watley leaving a message for producer Derrick Edmonson detailing her ideas for the song: "Make it a little sexy, a little funky, you know a little Sade, a little James Brown, and a little Miss Jody Watley, and fill in the blanks." Watley then began to beatbox where Edmonson segued into sun bathed beat-bursts. Over this spunky R&B fantasy, Watley preached love beyond the physical, something a bit more spiritual, and that it didn't matter if you're "young or old, straight or gay." Watley, a staunch GLBT supporter, later recalled the initial heat served to her when "Affection" was shipped to black radio in 1995: “I encountered complaints because of the word "gay," I didn't write it as a marketing tool, I meant it. A black artist unafraid to promote tolerance. What a concept.”

Watley steadied on releasing the album on July 15th, 1995 with distribution handled by Bellmark Records. The record didn't relieve her prior commercial descent, but got a warm welcome from critics and fans. All Music Guide writer Jose F. Promis described Affection: "This is a fine, quality album, entirely undeserving of the fate it received."
The record landed on the U.S Billboard Top R&B/Hip Hop chart at #59, the title track single hit #28 on the U.S R&B singles side. The record didn't appear on the U.S Billboard 200 at all disappointingly.

 Watley continued to release albums to acclaim post-Affection: Flower (1998), Saturday Night Experience (1999), Midnight Lounge (2003), and The Makeover (2006). Affection offered a collection of stylized R&B thanks to Watley's attention to detail in her craft. It also cemented her status as the only "Lady of Progressive R&B" with another proud addition to her discography. Three and a half stars out of five.-QH

[Editor's Note: *Jheryl Busby was one of the major executives at MCA Records during the mid-to-late 1980's and helped get Watley onto MCA.  Affection isn't in print but can be found at many used  or online music retailers for a decent price. For more current information on Jody Watley visit: Jody Watley Offical.-QH]

Looking Back at "The Love Movement" by A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest are one of the leading groups in hip-hop.. Emerging from the East Coast scene in 1990 with their fellow Native Tongues Collective (De La Soul, Monie Love, Queen Latifah, Prince Paul, Jungle Brothers, etc.) they blended intelligent and forward momentum rhymes with jazz/hip-hop fusion musical backdrops.

Q-Tip (Kamaal Fareed), Phife Dawg (Malik Taylor), and Ali Shaheed Muhammad released three records from 1990 through 1993 to critical, commercial, and creative acclaim: People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990), The Low End Theory (1991), and Midnight Marauders (1993). Those albums personified the jazz/hip-hop bybrid sound and became classics. In other words, any records coming after this "Tribe Trinity" were doomed to be deemed inferior because they weren't those albums.

Case and point with 1996's bleak, but brilliant Beats, Rhymes, and Life co-produced by the late, prolific J Dilla (James Dewitt Yancey). Trading in their plump, organic hybrids for a slender, sleek sound didn't resonate with everyone. In-fighting amongst the group also became a factor.

Ten years ago, September 29th 1998, Tribe's fifth album The Love Movement arrived to raised eyebrows. Production was handled by "The Ummah," a term for the three Tribesman and J Dilla and the group they had formed. On the first listen, The Love Movement steered the same lean wheel that drove Beats, Rhymes, and Life. Further inspection showed that a basic, skeletal groove acted as the foundation for subtle, but plentiful phonic treats.

Ali, Tribe's D.J., assisted Dilla in layering the razor sharp thump-bumps with an atmospheric membrane of broken dialogue and samples. Once concoted, the creations of Dilla and Ali were woven with care to churn and shift in and out of various song plateaus. The Love Movement functioned as a unified whole, a feast of hip-hop minimalism at its best.

Thematically, the confrontational tone from Beats, Rhymes, and Life was eagerly exchanged for an uplifting topic: love. Affection for the art of the emcee, life, and of course the general beast of love were handled in that classic and handsome Tribe flavor.

Starting with Tribe's love of hip-hop music you had the stuttering, shoulder popping opener "Start It Up" which banged with an attitudinal sneer. "Pad & Pen," a playful exchange of flow mastery between Phife and Tip, verse trade in a pendulum-like fashion swung casually back and forth. "Da Booty," an allusion to both treasure and one's derriere, a clattering party starter.

It was the area of relationships where Tribe shined in handling the matter and conveying another realm of excellence in their lyrical pace. The troubling duality of flirtation was examined on the lead single, the space-age fluidity of "Find a Way." Phife's detached hook, "Now you caught my heart for the evening, kiss my cheek, move in, you confused things. Now should I just sit out or come harder, help me find my way!" jumped into the maddeningly loquacious verbiage of Tip's verse attack. The narrative is nestled in the buoyancy of the track itself, with zig-zagging scratches that moved from one end of the cut to the other.

"Common Ground (Get It Goin' On)" stood out, finding the man as a victim in the claustrophobic confines of a woman who viewed a relationship as a one-way street. An interesting mixture of male sensitivity and swagger, without compromise for either one, was awesome. "Against the World,"  foreplay a la carte, Q-Tip tauntied his lady with an invite to "taste his lips," while he "unlaces his Nike's" to get ready for the deed.


"Find a Way"
Directed By: Paul Hunter



The record ran 15 cuts deep with original material, an additional six remixes of their classic material ("Oh My God," "Scenario," etc.)  placed at the tail of the record. Unneeded, but possibly Tribe's way of bidding their audience "adieu" with their impending break-up on the horizon with the release of this album. Only a few of the original cuts ("Steppin' It Up," "Rock, Rock Y'all") didn't quicken the musical heart. Majority of the songs barely rose over three minutes, hence The Love Movement's pace being smooth and clean.

The Love Movement met mixed critical and commercial attitudes, it managed modest returns it attained gold certification in the States. A Tribe Called Quest's last album is a tour de force of hip-hop artistry, despite any inner or outer turmoil. In this time, when most "dime bag" acts attempts to sport hip-hop minimalism, this Tribe album stands as an example of what hip-hop was and can be. Four stars out of five.-QH

[Editor's Note: The Love Movement is still readily in print and easily found at any music retailer.-QH]