Marc Mac of U.K. junglists 4Hero launched Visioneers to pay homage to classic hip-hop breaks. His 2006 debut, Dirty Old Hip Hop, was too cool and muted, save for one brilliant cover of Pete Rock's "The World Is Yours." This follow-up has the same soulful downtempo tone, but with dozens of musicians to assist him, it's more vividly realized than that debut. "Swahililand," which riffs on J Dilla's "Stakes Is High," has an impressive orchestral sweep, and everyone knows "Apache." But it's not all remakes: "Whatever Happened to Peace" is a haunting jazz number that soars into the cosmos.
It's expected that Leela James must pay homage to the late Etta James by singing Etta's anthem, "At Last," in a style similar to the original. However, the rest of James' Loving You More is surprisingly irreverent. She adds a Linn drum machine to "Damn Your Eyes" for a rhythm akin to Prince's "When Doves Cry"; and "Sunday Kind of Love" gets a similar '80s R&B makeover. She lifts the piano line from Dr. Dre's "Still D.R.E." for a swinging version of "It Hurts Me So Much." James' covers are so playful that her final track, "At Last," is just a perfunctory, if necessary, epilogue.
Will "Quantic" Holland is considered an electronic producer, but that label never fit him. When he launched as a "broken beat" artist in the early '00s, he built his tracks around retro-soul and deep funk. And since relocating to Colombia, the British musician has delved into classic Latin sounds with the Combo Bárbaro. U.K. singer Alice Russell, whose voice recalls Dusty Springfield, traveled to Colombia to record Look Around the Corner with them, resulting in the magnificent sunshine pop of the title track and "Magdalena" as well as folksy salsa rhythms like "Una Tarde en Mariquita."
Michael Kiwanuka is a folkie whose Home Again recalls the likes of Terry Callier and Raul Midon. He arrives to our shores at a time when American tastes for UK soul seems insatiable, whether it's the big-hearted pop of Adele or the light musings of Corinne Bailey Rae. Kiwanuka's charms are modest - he has a raspy, declamatory old-school voice reminiscent of Richie Havens, and a warm '60s pop sound to weave tales of love ("Tell Me a Tale") and spirituality ("I'm Getting Ready"). He sounds less of an individual talent than the sum of his influences, but his work shows promise.
After breaking up in the late '90s, girl-group favorite SWV make a strong comeback on I Missed Us. Lead singer Coko still has the light, girlish voice that won our hearts on hit singles like "Right Here." But she's an adult now, and despite the odd club track or two (including "Show Off" and the great lead single "Co-Sign"), she addresses long-term relationships here, from the couples therapy of the title track to the sexy come-on "Use Me." This might turn off younger R&B fans, but those of us who grew up with the SWV ladies will appreciate their new maturity.
Jesse Boykins III isn't exactly the ingénue he proclaims himself to be on "I'm New Here." He's been on the fringes of New York's indie-soul scene for years, but Zulu Guru is his first project with international distribution. Boykins' collaborator, Melo-X, is a negligible rapper, but he swathes Boykins' breathily light voice in deep, sensuous electronic grooves. "Outta My Mind" is just a drum machine and heavenly vocalese; "Searching Her Ways" dips into pulsing garage-house rhythms; and "The Perfect Blues" layers African-flavored percussion rhythms into a story of NYC heartbreak.
Being the flagship artist for Wax Poetics, a magazine and record label famed for its crate-digger finds, ensures that Kendra Morris will be a retro artist. Yet her debut album, which follows a few self-released EPs, soars on a voice that embodies both Dusty Springfield and Amy Winehouse. Her execution is flawless on the seductively haunting "If You Didn't Go," and she sounds both ragged and elegant on "Right Now," with its hard-driving chicken-scratch guitar. The producer, Jeremy Page, makes sure Morris' emotionally direct performances on Banshee sparkle.
Lianne La Havas is a cool yet flirtatious woman who often sings in a quiet voice just above a whisper. Comparisons to Corinne Bailey Rae are inevitable, but La Havas isn't afraid to leap into bigger sounds than just acoustic pop on her debut, from the loud drums and booming beat of "Forget" to the dramatic piano swirls and percussion of "Lost & Found." Still, she seems most comfortable with just her guitar and her voice. On "Au Cínema" she's the perfect date, "your Betty Blue," blows sweet kisses to folkie Willy Mason on "No Room for Doubt," and even gives hope to old geezers on "Age."
Brandy's comeback after years of tabloid hell has some of the best beats of her career. With help from producers like Major Lazer's Switch ("Slower") and Bangladesh ("So Sick" and the Chris Brown-assisted "Put It Down"), she makes songs that evoke both futurist neo-wave and classic girl-group R&B, while weaving an effortless vocal performance around her smooth, bird-like trills. Two Eleven's weak spots are its lyrics, which range from the clumsy chorus of "Do You Know What You Have" to the overwrought theme "Scared of Beautiful." But with music this fantastic, you'll hardly notice.
Elle Varner is a restlessly inventive writer, and a singer with a sweetly gritty voice reminiscent of Keyshia Cole and Macy Gray. She mostly sticks to love and loss, but she devises nifty twists, from the slurred chorus of "Refill," to being too shy to speak to a crush on "Not Tonight." On "So Fly," she's a woman who frets over her body measurements, like TLC's "Unpretty." The one thing keeping Varner's debut Imperfect is the production: Save for the Biz Markie-inspired percussion on "Only Wanna Give It To You," its R&B-by-numbers can't keep pace with her outstanding lyrics.
Solange Knowles has struggled for years to step out of the shadow of her older sister, Beyoncé. Now freed from a major label, True confirms that, yes, she's sort of a hipster. Her songs, co-produced with Lightspeed Champion, drip fashionably with '80s pop and synths. Yet she has a knack for lyrical whimsy. On "Don't Let Me Down," she sings, "I can't get up/ I moved the mountains in my mind." She twists the phrase "played around with your heart" on "Lovers in the Parking Lot" with poetic ease. She's on the cusp of an artistic breakthrough, if she can only figure out how to get there.
With The MF Life, Melanie Fiona threads the needle between R&B trends. There's atmospheric balladry like the hit single "4 a.m." and "I Been That Girl," a little bit of Auto-Tunin' via the T-Pain duet "6 a.m.," he-said-she-said rivalries with rappers such as Nas (who delivers an excellent verse on "Running"), the pop-rock gem "Watch Me Work," and retro-soul such as "Bones." Fiona pulls this diverse collection off with a consistently impressive performance that rivals Keyshia Cole in her heyday. These songs seem less like experiments than shades of a talented and multi-faceted artist.
For producer Richard Russell, The Bravest Man in the Universe follows Gil Scott-Heron's I'm New Here, another duet with a '70s black music icon. But while the late Scott-Heron met Russell while in jail on drug charges, resulting in an unpleasantly bleak affair, Womack made this album after 2010's "Stylo," his hit single with Damon Albarn and Gorillaz. Womack got clean years ago, and his optimism burns brightly on "Love Is Gonna Lift You Up" and "Deep River." Wisely, Russell and Albarn let rays of sun shine through their downtempo beats to match Womack's life-affirming comeback.
Despite well-connected admirers like Erykah Badu and Mos Def, L.A. artist Georgia Anne Muldrow continues to walk her own path. While her self-produced work can often be too quirky and low-fi, Seeds strikes an excellent compromise, as producer Madlib bangs out simple yet evocative soul loops that help structure her songs. Lyrically, Muldrow floats over a range of topics, from paying homage to her father on "Wind" and Buddhism on "Kali Yuga" to decrying political wars overseas on "Best Love," that easily surpasses anything heard in the sex-obsessed world of commercial R&B.
Where has Cody ChesnuTT been? The guitarist who was once primed to be the next great soul artist tells us that he has been saved by the Lord, and swaps the raunchy funk 'n' blues of 2002's The Headphone Masterpiece for redemptive throwback soul. "I used to smoke crack back in the day ... now I'm teaching kids in Sunday school," he sings on "Everybody's Brother." His spiritual growth leads him to regret his past, and he tells his son "Don't Follow Me," while mourning American narcissism on "What Kind of Cool (Will We Think of Next)." Through it all, his honesty is his saving grace.
Dawn Richard was first discovered via Diddy's Making the Band 2 reality series, and then recruited for slickly packaged groups like Danity Kane and Diddy-Dirty Money. Few thought she was capable of an indie record like Armor On. What impresses isn't the mixed bag of songs like "Bombs," "Change" and "Scripture," nor the vogue-ish electronic beats, but the album's rawness. Richard really sounds like she's rocking in a basement studio, and she exudes an incredible presence. And when it climaxes in the EDM rager "Faith," you can't help but think she has the makings of solo stardom.
Robert Glasper's chops as a jazz pianist can't be questioned -- he picked up a Grammy nomination and turned heads early in his career. But Glasper is equally notable for bridging genres. Black Radio is a collaboration with a roster of urban, hip-hop and R&B voices that includes Erykah Badu, Me'Shell Ndegeocello and Mos Def. All the mixed elements make it difficult to classify this as a jazz record (there's a robotic cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," for goodness sake), but that's precisely the point: It's a testament to Glasper's potential to bring jazz back into the mainstream.
Trilogy, which compiles Canadian artist The Weeknd's three 2011 EPs, reveals the enormity of his achievement: three nine-song suites and three new cuts ("Twenty Eight," "Valerie" and "Till Dawn (Here Comes the Sun)") totaling over two and a half hours. He and producers Doc McKinney and Illangelo nestle references like Siouxsie & the Banshees' "Happy House" ("House of Balloons") and Michael Jackson's pleading voice ("D.D.," a cover of MJ's "Dirty Diana") into erotically charged bedroom R&B inflated to gothic extremes. It's a world driven by animalistic lust and desires.
Miguel's second album is drenched in his honeyed, echoing voice. Its airy lightness fuses the synthesized boogie of underground artists like Dam-Funk to the lovelorn sex rooms of R&B. A relentless seducer, Miguel implores the listener to "Use Me"; "I can teach you," he promises seductively. "Adorn" and "Do You..." sound terrific, especially when contrasted with his debut, All I Want Is You, which had a brighter, if equally sex-obsessed, tone. Although he can't quite divorce himself from mainstream R&B's focus on baby-making ballads, Kaleidoscope Dream is still an impressive evolution.
After 2011's excellent Nostalgia, Ultra mixtape and the hit "Novacane," Frank Ocean fulfills his promise with this revelatory hour documenting his L.A. life, from the privileged teens running wild on "Super Rich Kids" to the nine-minute stripper tribute "Pyramids" (his most indulgent track). Singer-songwriter introspection (via a guitar solo from John Mayer on the oddly titled "White") and The Neptunes (the Pharrell Williams-produced "Sweet Life") lend substance to Ocean's journey in Hollyweird, but his sympathetic lyrics and warm voice make it intimate and casually brilliant.
