Faith Evans "Love Like This"

Album: Keep The Faith (Bad Boy/ Arista; 1998)
Songwriters: Sean "Puffy" Combs, Schon-Jamel Crawford, Bernard Edwards, C. Emery, Faith Evans, Ron Lawrence and Nile Rodgers
R&B Peak Position: #2

"Baby try to understand/ I'll be crazy if you leave/ Cause you compliment my style"

On the surface Chic might have seemed like yet another producer-driven disco act, but once anyone became aware of the glittery, uptown-soul-meets-downtown-funk arrangements behind the image, they were instantly sold on one of the best musical teams to ever cater to the dancefloor. After commanding the interest of the club scene with their 1977 eponymous debut and it's singles "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)" and "Everybody Dance", the band returned a year later with C'est Chic, home to their gargantuan staple "Le Freak" and the scrumptious opening number entitled "Chic Cheer".

Embedded with an audience's roaring applause, "Cheer" was a self-hyping disco novelty anchored in Bernard Edwards' teasing stop-and-start bass lines and Nile Rodgers' hyperactive lead guitar. Above it's dance-funk playground, the anonymous female vocalists talk-sang their way through spirited cheerleader chants that pointedly laid out the band's entire purpose: to make "everybody strut".

"Chic Cheer" might have carried several musical hooks, but it was arguably nothing more than a disco skeleton in need of some solid song innards. That finally came to pass twenty years later, when Puffy and his sample-crazy production squad tapped it as the Day Glo-lit backdrop for Faith Evans' sophomore album lead-off "Love Like This".



DL: "Chic Cheer" (YFH)

Faith might have gotten a certain amount of respect inside R&B circles (girl could SANG), but it couldn't be easily ignored that the material found on 1995's Faith essentially presented her as a lesser version of Mary J. Blige. Making things worse was that Evans was mostly known in the mainstream world not for her music, but for being a major component in the feud between 2Pac and his rival/ her husband Notorious BIG (she was alleged to have cheated on Biggie with Pac).

By the time Keep The Faith dropped, Evans public image wasn't as tainted. The death of Biggie brought tons of sympathy her way, especially following her heart-breaking performance in the B.I.G. tribute, "I'll Be Missing You", a track that provided her biggest pop audience yet. She was also now remarried, and the newfound happiness that union brought, would become a notable influence on the new album, especially "Love Like This".

With the Chic track deftly illustrating her inner elation and her gospel-tinged vocals sounding re-energized, Evans celebrates the joy of finding love again after suffering through such a devastating loss. "The reasons are because of you/ I can go on and make it through/ I can't even take my mind off loving you," Faith announces with glee, the electric chemistry between her and her new husband reducing her to a giddisome little girl who echoes without irony simple puppy love rhymes like "I like the way you walk/ And the sexy things you talk".

The summation of her powerful vocal, the song's charming lyricism and it's sparkling disco beat resulted in a contemporary R&B monster that brought her career to new heights. Exploding on Top 40 and the Dance charts, "Love Like This" granted Faith's first helping of crossover love via a solo record and would lead to several more respectable dalliances with uptempo material on successive projects.

In 2003, "Love Like This" would earn even more worldwide praise when hip hop hype man Fatman Scoop used it as the base groove of his #1 UK club banger, "Be Faithful".

Best Moment: It's eye-dazzling music video, another visual masterpiece from Hype Williams.

Faith Evans - Love Like This ]
Uploaded by dinidin

DL: "Love Like This" (YFH)