January 8, 2021: Jazmine Sullivan, "Girl Like Me"

Jazmine Sullivan’s Heaux Tales is the first release I’m really excited about in 2021. It’s been a long six years since her last album, 2015’s excellent Reality Show — “Let It Burn” is one of my favourite songs of the ‘10s — and I’m eager to hear how Jazmine fits into an R&B landscape that’s experienced some major shifts in that time.

I hear her as a bridge between a more traditional school of vocalists and a younger generation of stars, folks like SZA and Kehlani and Summer Walker. Her voice is gritty, voluminous, capable of uncorking mind-bending runs out of thin air; she’s also conversational, comfortable within hip-hop’s frameworks, and funny as hell. (I’m thinking about a line from Reality Show’s “Stanley,” in which a beleaguered wife demands a little more love from her lazy husband: “Just show me some appreciation / or maybe take a bitch to dinner!”)

Heaux Tales’ three singles are evidence of her emotional range. “Lost One” is a heartbroken statement of regret, a plea for forgiveness from someone who’s done their partner wrong and sacrificed a chance at closure; “Pick Up Your Feelings” flips the script, scorching the earth behind a man who thought he could fool around. (And again, it cracks me up: she tells the guy to call his other girl for a ride because “gas way too expensive.”) The live acoustic version of the latter is mandatory viewing, by the way.

“Girl Like Me” was released earlier this week, and it lands somewhere between the other two songs. The mood is complex: there’s a layer of bemusement and disbelief covering up a deep wound. It’s a song about being made to feel like you’re not good enough and then taking it out on yourself, scrambling for anything — not skinny enough, not sexy enough, too boring and simple — to make sense of another person’s hurtful behaviour. She’s joined by H.E.R. on the second verse, a great duet partner who’s working from a similar place between styles of R&B.

The arrangement is simple and loose, a warm guitar loop and an unobtrusive bass — all the better to let these voices shine. When they really cut loose in the bridge and beyond, the effect is breathtaking: two phenomenal singers with complementary timbre, translating their pain and confusion into piercing harmony. It’s been a long week at work and a long start to this year, and I can’t wait for the moment later tonight when I can pour a little scotch and sink my teeth into the rest of Heaux Tales. There can’t be a better way to start another year in music.