At the end of March, the singer dropped his first album in more than four years, Since I Have a Lover. 6lack’s description in interviews of his style was not only matched but amplified aesthetically by the black-and-white cover for his 2016 debut album Free 6lack, also Grammy-nominated (Best Urban Contemporary Album), for which he sat nonchalantly on a bed next to a bear – a real one. He’s beloved especiallyīy trap-leaning R&B fans who like their music downtempo and their musicians even more down: the kind of people who favour authentic dispatches from wounded souls with complicated and occasionally unsavoury romantic histories. His music often sounds chilly and jaded, his voice like stainless steel processed through film grain. writes a lot of songs about heartbreak and detachment. PRBLMS went triple-platinum and, with its nod for Best Rap/Sung Performance, earned 6lack the first of his three Grammy nominations.ĭespite his romance-channelling surname, the 30-year-old born Ricardo Valdez Valentine Jr. Mostly, though, it erred on the side of her flaws every ex is one bad memory away from becoming the villain in an R&B songbook. It was also clever, in that it split the difference between what he didn’t love about her and what he couldn’t like about himself – his remoteness, his flightiness. When the Baltimore-born, Atlanta-raised singer-rapper first turned up on the music scene in 2016, he was fresh out of a bad record deal and armed with a banger called PRBLMS, in which he quoted a text sent by an ex-girlfriend at the height of an argument: “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” The song was about a failed partnership with a woman he seemed to care for only half the time, delivered with a half-sung, half- rapped cadence that felt, at once, stoned and lucid, casual and relaxed. “Moments where I wasn’t operating at my highest potential.” Even though his camera is switched off, you can hear him saying it with a gold-toothed grin. “I’ve definitely had my fair share of questionable relationships,” says 6lack, who’s calling in on Zoom one spring afternoon from Los Angeles. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the release of Confessions, some COMPLEX staffers picked their favorite of those songs and wrote about what made them so dope.Taken from the new print issue of THE FACE. The album was so stacked, some songs that didn't even make the album, like "My Boo" with Alicia Keys, were number one hits. Out of the first seven tracks, four were top 10 singles. Gossip aside, the real reason Confessions blew up was the stellar song selection. Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas from TLC, the buying public thought this was art imitating life. Raymond was in a two-year relationship with Ms. The theme of the album, tailored for Usher by Jermaine Dupri, was of a man confessing wrongs he's committed while in a committed relationship. It was seen not only as musical feat, but a marketing one, as well. Featuring production by Lil Jon, Just Blaze, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, and, most importantly, Jermaine Dupri, Usher's fourth solo album was hailed as his best work yet. But only one black artist managed to go diamond during that time: Usher Raymond IV. Only eight albums managed to sell more than 10 million copies during the Aughts.
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