Not to say that R & B was boring in 1991, but it was a classier place. The R & B airwaves were filled with schmaltz, glitz and a lack of an expressive core. It was certainly that way for the males. The sensuous male expression of R & B was all about buttoned down men in suits and Stacy Adams two tone shoes cooing artfully and abstractly about love and romance. The ballad was the domain of Freddie Jackson and Johnny Gill, but in one fell swoop of New Jack Swing, church honed yearning and Harlem attitude, that all changed, and so did the history of music.
Jodeci is one of the touchstone groups in the history of R & B. Straight up, no chaser, K-Ci, Jo Jo, Mr. Dalvin and DeVante Swing turned up the heat, and once again evolved R & B into the realm of sex. But not just any sex. Sweaty, dirty, nasty, hard, powerful, headboard shattering sex. How? Well, all four southern VA brothers had vocals honed in the church. There’s an ability in having a studied knowledge of the vein of gospel to ascend the voice to unforeseen heights of love. In being more than vocally proficient in praising the Lord, to many the ultimate love, that like Ray Charles and Sam Cooke before them, translating that to the realm of the secular, though sacrilegious, is simple and successful.
As well, there’s the look. Signed to Uptown Records, their A & R representative was Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, a young man who had molded Mary J. Blige into a rough hewn diva with a heart bleeding pure, golden, bittersweet love, took the four choir boys, draped them in literally every stereotypical item of the American urban experience, and loosed them upon the world. Sweatsuits, brown suede Timberlands, jackboots, baggy jeans, vests, Starter caps, baseball jerseys, hockey jerseys, sunglasses, baseball bats, Jeeps, and so on and so forth. Jodeci didn’t just emote love, they emoted a lifestyle, a type of love, a type of romance that was frightening, dangerous, iconic and a clear message to urban America that they had a voice, and they knew exactly what they liked to do.
Their debut Forever My Lady is a timeless epic. The most epic of all Jodeci tracks isn’t even on the album though, but is the Puff Daddy remix of “Come and Talk To Me.” “Come and Talk to Me” the album version is a lovely four part harmony that literally discusses hollerin’ at a girl on the street. “Come and talk to me, I really wanna meet you girl, I really wanna, know your name.” Somewhere between Puffy’s interpolation of the EPMD classic “You’re a Customer” alongside the simplest of keyboard lines, the song goes from “I really wanna know you and take you to dinner,” to “I really wanna know you, take you to dinner, take you to my apartment, and cook you breakfast, lunch and dinner.” “Talk to me talk to me talk to me baby” isn’t K-Ci demanding a phone number, he’s demanding a satisfying exotic experience.
Jodeci strangulates every ounce of erotic emotion in themselves and empties it onto this track. It is the remix that launched Puffy’s career as a remixer. Yes the sample and the keys are incredible, but listen to Jodeci. And listen to them say, without saying exactly what they’re implying, exactly what they’re implying. There’s a skill and talent in infusing words with meaning that is human, and explored here. Even better, on the version of the remix that contains Mr. Dalvin’s rap, well, he clearly states that he wants the woman to “close the door, dim the lights, press play and then pump me.” It’s those proclamations that define the essence of the Jodeci experience, the sexual expression, and the honest, desirous need of the urban male.
When song, image, style and presence meld, magic happens.
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