With some soul tracks you simply have to be in the mood. With Sade, you have to be of a certain age to really get it, and while her last single, 'By Your Side', contradicts that statement, 'King...' reiterates it. The mood, vibe, aura, you name it, is so slow and situation-orientated you feel excluded from proceedings.
Subject-wise, Sade, like Carleen Andersen, is emotively astute and sings of the feelings of others as instinctively as she's inclined to articulate her own. Unfortunately, this track simply rotates on its own axis, plundering on and on and on about something you eventually care little about because you've lost consciousness.
Gangstarr's Guru tries his best to boost the track into club-land (not one of Sade's best known places) but all he's done is taken one of DJ Premier's most recognisable hooks and cut and pasted it. His lazy idea doesn't pull it off. Sorrow all round, then...
soul mama
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