Beyond the bump and grind

FOR SOME TIME , R. Kelly has been the King of Jive, the top-selling male artist on the label that has housed everyone from Britney Spears to E-40. But artistically speaking, Kelly now faces a challenge of sorts from Raheem DeVaughn, whose approach couldn't be further from Kelly's bump-and-grind attack. In fact, my favorite cut on DeVaughn's The Love Experience might be described as stately – propelled forward by a string arrangement that's as close to classical music as it is to the chunkier skyward ascent of vintage Philly soul, "Where I Stand" teases out the friends-or-lovers quandary with insistent, infectious fervor.

The live drums, low-key vibes, and muted, skittering guitar of The Love Experience's first single, "Guess Who Loves You More," might suggest DeVaughn is yet another name to add to "neo-soul" rosters, but his talent – and sound – digs deeper than that marketing tag. In particular, his songwriting skills are impressive; the album's 16 tracks showcase storytelling lyricism and an assured skill at layering and intertwining vocal melodies and harmonies: "Believe" will have you doing just that. There are a few missteps, such as "Until," which places some ungainly autobiography over a played-out Isley Brothers sample. But for the most part, The Love Experience is a pleasurable one – better music than Musiq, with a richer flow than D'Angelo – that suggests DeVaughn will be around for quite some time to come.

Slow-burning, authoritative voices are rare these days, as vainglorious whiny preeners who've spent more time at the gym than in record stores reign supreme. That's what made Anthony Hamilton's emergence in 2003 with Comin from Where I'm From so refreshing; erase all glances at Hamilton's array of awful trucker caps from your visual data banks, and you'd swear that Bill Withers had returned, fiercer than ever. Not that Hamilton didn't assert his own artistic identity on that disc, one so well developed that it's no surprise to discover the album was hardly his first. (He first unleashed some neo-soul, before it took, with 1996's XTC.) Just released, Soulife (Atlantic/Rhino) dates from 1999 to 2001, when Southern-born and -raised Hamilton bounced from a stay in NY to record with Soulife, a label that housed and nurtured its artists under one Beverly Hills roof. The grooves are relatively sedate, and Hamilton doesn't draw power from his own hard knocks the way he does on his breakthrough. But no other male singer today has Hamilton's smoky authority.

JRH

To purchase the music featured in this article, visit iTunes:

Raheem DeVaughn, The Love Experience The Love Experience

Anthony Hamilton, Soulife Soulife