Album: Brown Sugar (EMI; 1995)
Songwriters: D'Angelo and Raphael Saadiq
R&B Peak Position: #2
"You're myyyyy lad-eee..."
The third single to drop from Brown Sugar and possibly it's finest track, "Lady" teamed D'Angelo with the songwriting, production and instrumental expertise of Raphael Saadiq and the result was pure soul satisfaction.
Nestled in a chilled-out chocolate groove that comforted the aural cavity with it's smooth bass, handclap and piano mix, D'Angelo flutters in and out of his tenor and falsetto ranges, overwhelmed by the secret love he and his "darling baby" share ("I know I love you and you love me/ There's no other lover for you and me"). At the same time, he's grown tired of keeping their union on the down-low ("I'm tryin' to get with the real"), yearning to make it clear to all the dudes licking their chops in her presence that she's already taken.
"Every guy in the parking lot wants to rob me of my girl/ And my heart and soul/ And everybody wants to treat me so cold," he sings in the bridge, it's tinge of paranoia complimenting the shadowy hues of the arrangement, as if to illustrate the threats that lurk on every corner. It's that dark element that made "Lady" such an endlessly heralded R&B prize, since it provided a dark realism to offset the classic soul romanticism found in it's simple ode of a hook.
DL: "Lady" (YFH)
To show some inclination to his hip hop roots, D'Angelo tapped East Coast beat giant DJ Premier for the remix. A bit of a shocking collaboration (on the surface the two seemed miles apart musically), the edgy revamp took D'Angelo's simmering vocal track and simply slapped it atop a heavy drum beat. What was delivered seemed to break all the rules; the trading in of live band textures for a sparse skeletal loop felt all kinds of wrong for a D'Angelo song. But even if it didn't seem superior to the original, within it's squared awkwardness lied a mind-blowing grasping of hip hop-soul that, combined with an incredible guest verse from acclaimed emcee AZ, ultimately brought the ever-burgeoning sub-genre to an exciting new level.
DL: "Lady (Remix)" (YFH)
1 comments:
as good as the original is, I think i like the remix better. everything about the video screams mid 90s..premier, faith, and az.
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