Being an outsider to the world of r&b these days, I’m not
\nashamed to admit the first thing that caught my attention on
\nDisappearing Acts<\/i>, the soundtrack to the HBO original film,
\nwas the cover art. (The more I see pictures of Sanaa Lathan, the
\nmore sexy I find her.)<\/p>\n
Of course, once the disc hit the player, two other things caught
\nmy attention. First, there is some absolutely wonderful music
\nthat’s contained inside. Second – what’s with censoring some of the
\nlanguage? It’s not like this was a movie aired on network
\ntelevision – this is HBO, for Crissake. (Seeing that I don’t
\npresently subscribe to any movie channels – and I highly doubt HBO
\nwill authorize my cable outlet to hook me up for repeatedly
\nmentioning them in this review – I don’t know if the movie’s
\nlanguage is equally toned down. And, please, this isn’t a call for
\npeople to send me free cable descrambler e-mails; I delete dozens
\nof those damned things every week. Unless you work for HBO, don’t
\nbother me.)<\/p>\n
Some of the names involved in this project will be recognizable
\nto even general music fans who rarely dip their toes into the
\nr&b\/rap pool. Angie Stone, who turned the world on its ear with
\n1999’s
\nBlack Diamond<\/i>, sets the tone with “Get To Know You Better” –
\na song which makes me want to run to the library post haste to grab<\/p>\n
Black Diamond<\/i> and give it a spin. Boyz II Men’s Shawn
\nStockman turns in a moving performance with “Head Over Heels” – and
\nwhile the older generation will remember who he was, the younger
\nlistener base is given an education by the late Donny Hathaway on
\n“A Song For You”. Chances are once they get a taste of this song,
\nthe kids will be rushing out to discover the rest of Hathaway’s
\nmusical legacy.<\/p>\n
Other artists impress as well. Melky Sedeck gets two chances to
\nshine, and they make the most of them on “Brooklyn” and “Just For
\nMy Baby”, while Tony Kurtis (“Do I Love You Enough”) and Terry
\nEllis (“Call On Me”) will leave you wanting to hear more from them
\nthan just one track. Even the collaboration between rapper Talib
\nKweli and Les Nubians (“Love Language”) should create more than a
\nfew smiles.<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, some of the more established artists have a
\ndifficult time staking their claims on
\nDisappearing Acts<\/i>. I like Chaka Khan, but she just doesn’t
\nseem to capture the heart of John Hiatt’s “Have A Little Faith In
\nMe”. The r&b spin doesn’t work; maybe if it had been pushed
\ntowards more of a gospel bend would have caused it to skyrocket.
\n(Hiatt himself put a gospel spin on the version on
\nThe Best Of John Hiatt<\/i>.) Likewise, Meshell Ndegeocello
\ndoesn’t seem to be able to get “Remember” fully up to speed,
\nrelying on the backbeat, her bass work and vocals to try and take
\nthe song somewhere special. It doesn’t make it, but not due to lack
\nof trying.<\/p>\n
The debut of rapper Borealis with “Y.O.Y.” is the one moment I
\ncould have lived without. Maybe better things are to come for
\nBorealis; this just wasn’t the moment.<\/p>\n
As much as I admit ignorance when it comes to r&b these days
\n(though I like a lot of what I hear),
\nDisappearing Acts<\/i> is the kind of disc I can easily pop into
\nthe player and leave there for the better part of an afternoon.
\nEven with the occasional wrinkle, it’s a generally fun disc to
\nlisten to and it captures a nice portrait of the spectrum we call
\nr&b today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5729],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-37004","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-soundtrack","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37004"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37004"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}