![]() Released on Mello Music, Lovesick is a stylistic departure from Apollo Brown’s cold-blooded 21st century boom-bap, but it shouldn’t come as a shock considering his historical skill at soulful sample chopping. It is an album that bears the echoes of Jodeci and James Brown, but it is ultimately the clarion vision of two masters of their respective forms. ![]() Yet it doesn’t sound out of step alongside DeVaughn’s peers The-Dream, Anderson. It is a work of startling beauty, a blend of modern R&B, classic soul, and guttural funk that recalls Smokey Robinson, Al Green, and Marvin Gaye. Lovesick is a collaboration between the 3x Grammy-nominated singer Raheem DeVaughn and the legendary hip-hop producer, Apollo Brown, best known for making hip-hop so grimy that it permanently lodges in your lungs and underneath your fingernails. With it, you get something like Lovesick. ![]() R&B is the genre, but soul is the yearning, the lust, the regret. Hip-Hop isn’t soul, but it’s the most fundamental component of its DNA. Soul isn’t the blues, but the best blues has soul. It can’t be borrowed or traded, bequeathed or imitated (no matter how much they try). It is a timeless idea and an immortal condition.
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