Sheldon Taylor's Souls of Black Notes

There was a time R&B quenched its creative thirst from the fountains of industry big budgets. It was the climate in which Carl Thomas released his debut Emotional album twenty years today. Like a tin of Bond's Beluga caviar, Emotional was musically exquisite from start to finish. Best consumed in its entirety. More Veuve Cliquot than opulent Cristal. Cool and refined, CT's whiskey-soaked vocals went down easy like a snifter of cognac.While others sold sex, Thomas sold seduction. Emotional burned like sage, calling on ancestral Black music's best moments. A well-placed Issac Hayes sample (" Wherever You Are") gave the record a sexy plushness. There was the muted moody blues of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue and Anita Baker's Rapture. Song lyrics recall the best of Luther Vandross' pensive narratives delivered in 3D: "Last night I think I feel in love with you/it was from a window/watching you around my way/ I was too shy to even call t

                                                                                                                                Its 2020 and post-millennial Black music is officially in its second decade. See it strut down a industry catwalk draped in shimmering highlights of the past decade: Hip-hop's comet-like ascent showered the galaxy with brand-new stars. Female power brokers ascended to the corporate throne to assume stewardship over urban music.  The airy minimalism of new R&B queens Jhene Aiko, SZA, Ella Mai, H.E.R. and Teyanna Taylor have supplanted the full-throat melisma of  Jessica Hudson and Fantasia. Solange 's A Seat of the Table (2016) moved her out of big sister's shadow for good.  Oozing Minnie and Donny's eclectic moody blues, Marvin's stacked vocals, Stevie's brooding contemplation and Aaliyah's seductive whisper (hear: Borderline and "Jerrod"), Seat's topical heat joined Common's fiery Black America Again