Jimmy Lee
Silhouette-style side view of the face of a black man with his hand reaching toward his cheek and wearing a fedora and sunglasses, backgrounded by an array of squiggly black, grey, and white lines
Studio album by
Raphael Saadiq
ReleasedAugust 23, 2019 (2019-08-23)
StudioBlakeslee Recording Co. (North Hollywood)
Genre
Length39:27
LabelColumbia
Producer
Raphael Saadiq chronology
Stone Rollin'
(2011)		 Jimmy Lee
(2019)
Singles from Jimmy Lee
  1. "Something Keeps Calling"
    Released: June 7, 2019
  2. "Glory to the Veins"
    Released: July 5, 2019

Jimmy Lee is the fifth studio album by American R&B singer, songwriter, and producer Raphael Saadiq. It was released on August 23, 2019 by Columbia Records. Recorded at Saadiq's personal studio in North Hollywood, it follows the critical success of his 2011 album Stone Rollin' and a period of years spent working on other musical projects, particularly those associated with African-American culture.

Departing from the upbeat retro stylings of Saadiq's previous albums, Jimmy Lee explores themes of stress, addiction, family dysfunction, financial burden, mortality, and mass incarceration, particularly in the context of African-American life. It uses murkier, more modern R&B sounds and a song cycle of personal narratives, inspired in part by the singer's older brother, who died from a heroin overdose when Saadiq was young, and after whom the album is titled. Saadiq, who played bass, guitar, and percussion, was joined in its recording by drummer Chris Dave, producer Brook D'Leau, engineer Gerry Brown, vocalist Taura Stinson, and rapper Kendrick Lamar, among others.

While performing modestly on record charts, Jimmy Lee received widespread acclaim and earned Saadiq some of the best reviews of his solo career. Critics applauded its ambitious sonic qualities and the singer's navigation through the complexities of its lyrical tragedies. Saadiq toured the US in early 2020 to further support the album, accompanied by singer-songwriter Jamila Woods as his opening act.

Background

Raphael Saadiq's solo career has been haunted by the ghosts of tormented men and women. ... He's walked a fine line between approaching these self-destructive figures—stand-ins for the ruptures and trauma in African-American communities—with empathy and pity.

— Ann-Derrick Gaillot (Pitchfork, 2019)[1]

Jimmy Lee is Saadiq's fifth album as a solo artist and his first in eight years,[2] following the critically acclaimed Stone Rollin' (2011).[3] In between albums, he had worked on various projects and recordings, including executive production of the Solange album A Seat at the Table (2016), score composition for the TV series Insecure, and co-writing of the Mary J. Blige song "Mighty River" (2017), which received an Academy Award nomination for its inclusion in the film Mudbound.[4] According to Pitchfork writer Ann-Derrick Gaillot, these ventures left Saadiq's "fingerprints ... all over the past few years of Black American culture" and seemed to have "emboldened" him for Jimmy Lee.[1]

The album is named after and inspired in part by Saadiq's brother, who died in the 1990s of a heroin overdose after contracting HIV. He was one of four siblings in Saadiq's family to die tragically young.[5] As Dylan Hicks chronicles for City Pages, "brother Alvie was murdered in a dispute with a family member when Raphael was a boy; Jimmy Lee Baker, much older than Raphael, had a long struggle with heroin that eventually led to a fatal overdose; another brother, Desmond, a suicide, also battled chemical dependency; a sister, Sarah, was killed after backing her car into a police chase."[6]

Writing and recording

A black man in a black button-down shirt, black-frame eyeglasses, and a black fedora playing an electric guitar and biting his lip
Saadiq with a guitar, one of several instruments he played for Jimmy Lee

When asked about writing the album, Saadiq told Entertainment Weekly in August 2019 that he first considered his own struggle with dieting and eating healthy before arriving at a deeper concept. "I would do it for a while but then I'd just fall off track", he explained. "Then I started thinking about people who are addicted to drugs, like my brother, and how much people wanted him to stop, and I figured I couldn't even stop doing some of the things I was doing when it came to food."[7] After contemplating his brother's self-destruction with drugs, Saadiq elaborated on it further to write more songs, considering his own brushes with drugs, the experiences of his friends, and visits with his mother to a Kaiser Permanente facility, where he recalled seeing long lines for prescription drug pickups.[8] "People don't realize that addiction can take over your entire life", he went on to tell the magazine. "This is a world epidemic. I stayed in that space and I didn't come back out until I was done [recording the album]."[7]

Saadiq recorded and produced Jimmy Lee at Blakeslee Recording Co.,[9] his personal studio in North Hollywood.[8] For certain songs, he collaborated with multi-instrumentalist Ali Shaheed Muhammad, rapper Kendrick Lamar, and producer Brook D'Leau, among others.[9] According to Jem Aswad of Variety in August 2019, "unusually for contemporary R&B, Saadiq's songs seem mostly to have been written on guitar or bass (he excels on both), giving them a rootsy core that's rare in most popular music today."[10]

Music and lyrics

The music of Jimmy Lee is a significant departure for Saadiq artistically,[2] abandoning the upbeat retro stylings of his previous solo albums[11] and the psychedelic, Dylanesque influences of Stone Rollin' in particular.[12] Instead, it features a wide range of R&B styles produced in modern fashion, albeit still employing soul and funk sounds from the 1970s.[10][13] From that period, Aswad cites influences in the socially conscious recordings of Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, and Stevie Wonder,[10] while Damien Morris from The Observer says the album strives to be a modern version of Gaye's What's Going On (1971) or Prince's Sign o' the Times (1987).[14] Detroit Metro Times journalist Jerylin Jordan observes elements of Motown and gospel music in Jimmy Lee's "danceable neo-soul stylings".[12] Gospel is overtly represented on "Belongs to God", while Saadiq's vocals throughout the album are characterized by gospel-style shouts, along with crooning and whispered singing.[1]

The album's soul songs have uniform rhythms overall, although "Kings Fall", "My Walk", and "I'm Feeling Love" feature dissonance in the form of clashing electronic sounds and erratic vocals, reflecting themes of distress in their narratives.[13] Saadiq sings over rough-sounding synthesizer sounds in a bluesy, soulful cadence on "My Walk", which is "his biggest musical departure, and also the album's most frankly autobiographical track", says Gaillot.[1] According to Nashville Scene writer Stephen Trageser, Jimmy Lee's literary narratives about cycles of poverty, addiction, and incarceration are placed in the framework of "futuristic soul" and "warped, swirling beats",[15] resulting in a tone that Greg Kot describes as murky throughout.[2]

A black metal box turned on its side and opened to show instruments used for heroin use, including a silver spoon and syringes
A heroin kit found in an abandoned East Texas house, 2007. Cycles of drug addiction and poverty are explored throughout the album.

Composed as a song cycle, the album follows characters who are variously affected by stress, addiction, family dysfunction, inadequate love, loneliness, chronic financial burden, despair, AIDS, death, mass incarceration, and drug criminalization's relationship to African-American men.[2][11][1] Jordan describes it more broadly as a collection of "wise and prolific hypotheticals suited for those touched by addiction and anyone who might find themselves confronted with temptation".[12] Perspectives from the addict are told on the blues-inspired "Kings Fall" and the groove-oriented neo soul song "I'm Feeling Love".[1] "Kings Fall", which also takes after the Motown soul of Saadiq's The Way I See It (2008), draws on Jimmy Lee's reputation as a much-loved and charming drug addict around Saadiq's childhood neighborhood in Oakland, reflected in lyrics such as "I used to be everybody's hero / Shakin' hands and kissing babies".[16] Another Motown-influenced track, "Rikers Island", is a protest song.[1]

Marketing and sales

Columbia Records released Jimmy Lee on August 23, 2019.[9] "Something Keeps Calling" and "Glory to the Veins" were released as singles[7] on June 6[17] and July 5,[18] respectively. In interviews leading up to the album's release, Saadiq spoke about his relationship with Jimmy Lee and the role of heroin addiction in his brother's life.[16] According to Mix magazine's Lily Moayeri, while Jimmy Lee is a kind of concept album, Saadiq had not perceived an overriding theme "until he started promoting the album and had to respond to what listeners were taking away from it".[8]

Commercially, Jimmy Lee charted in the US at number 25 on Billboard magazine's Top Album Sales in the week of September 7, 2019, its only week on the chart.[19] Saadiq further supported the album with a concert tour of the US,[9] accompanied by a live band.[4] Beginning on January 23, 2020, at the House of Blues in San Diego, the 27-show Jimmy Lee Tour featured DJ Duggz in the role of concert DJ and singer-songwriter Jamila Woods as the opening act.[4][15]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic90/100[20]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[21]
And It Don't StopA−[11]
Chicago Tribune[2]
Daily Republic[22]
Knack[23]
The Observer[14]
Paste8.0/10[16]
Pitchfork7.8/10[1]
PopMatters9/10[13]
Q[24]

Jimmy Lee was met with widespread critical acclaim. At the aggregate website Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received a score of 90, based on eight reviews.[20] It is Saadiq's highest-scoring solo work and the 63rd-scoring album of the 21st century, according to the website's data in April 2020.[25][26]

Reviewing for Q in October 2019, Steve Yates hailed Jimmy Lee as "a dark album for darker times" and declared, "at 53, Saadiq is still ahead of the curve."[24] In The New York Times, Alex Pappademas claimed, "As a solo artist, Saadiq has long been a master without a masterpiece for consensus to point to. Jimmy Lee could change that through sonic ambition alone."[5] Adriane Pontecorvo, for PopMatters, said of the album, "Saadiq puts his artistic skills to use in full, reaching new emotional and technical heights while delving into heartbreaking lows. Jimmy Lee shows why, even though he so often stays behind the scenes these days, his is one of the most compelling voices in modern-day soul music."[13] In Paste, Saby Reyes-Kulkarni was impressed by Saadiq's "truly remarkable combination of dexterity and ease" in maneuvering through "a complicated tangle of feelings", considering his love and idolization of Jimmy Lee growing up.[16]

Some reviewers were more reserved in their praise. While not finding the album entirely successful in its ambition, Damien Morris of The Observer called the songs "brutally honest, occasionally impressionistic", and "beautiful", highlighting the "astonishing, soul-scraping laments" of "This World Is Drunk" and "Kings Fall".[14] Reviewing in his Substack-published "Consumer Guide" column, Robert Christgau said that only "My Walk" has a "surefire hook" on what is nevertheless a "one-of-a-kind album" that places the "slick modernist R&B" style of Saadiq's 1990s group, Tony! Toni! Toné!, "in a tragic vision of black life that's devoid of street and hood – of realities turned hip hop commonplaces that too often ignore the complexities".[11]

In a year-end list for the Chicago Tribune, Kot ranked Jimmy Lee as the second best album of 2019, behind Woods' Legacy! Legacy![27] In a year-end essay for Slate, Ann Powers also named it one of her favorite albums from 2019, as well as proof that the album format is not dead but rather undergoing a "metamorphosis". She added that concept albums had reemerged through the culturally-relevant autobiographical narratives of artists such as Saadiq, whose "masterful Jimmy Lee had the R&B Jedi master using all of his wisdom as a serious soul nerd to create a tragic but ultimately transcendent saga from the real travails of his very broken family".[28]

Track listing

Jimmy Lee track listing
No.TitleWriter(s)Producer(s)Length
1."Sinners Prayer"
Saadiq4:34
2."So Ready"
  • Saadiq
  • D'Leau
4:19
3."This World Is Drunk"SaadiqSaadiq4:24
4."Something Keeps Calling" (featuring Rob Bacon)SaadiqSaadiq4:44
5."Kings Fall"
  • Saadiq
  • Dylan Wiggins
  • Saadiq
  • Sir Dylan
2:46
6."I'm Feeling Love"
  • Saadiq
  • D'Leau
  • Saadiq
  • D'Leau
3:04
7."My Walk"
  • Saadiq
  • Charlie Bereal
  • Saadiq
  • Bereal
2:16
8."Belongs to God" (featuring Reverend E. Baker)
  • Saadiq
  • Elijah Baker Sr.
Saadiq2:05
9."Dottie Interlude"
  • Saadiq
  • D'Leau
  • Saadiq
  • D'Leau
0:06
10."Glory to the Veins" (featuring Ernest Turner)
  • Saadiq
  • Charles Brungardt
  • Saadiq
  • Brungardt
2:05
11."Rikers Island"Saadiq
  • Saadiq
  • D'Leau
  • Wooten
3:39
12."Rikers Island Redux" (featuring Daniel J. Watts)SaadiqSaddiq2:57
13."Rearview" (featuring Kendrick Lamar)
Saadiq2:28
Total length:39:27
  • The vinyl edition ends "Rearview" with two minutes of silence and the hidden track "Angel".[29]

Personnel

Credits are adapted from AllMusic.[30]

  • Raphael Saadiq – bass guitar, guitar, percussion, additional synthesizer programming
  • Taura Stinson – background vocals
  • Chris Dave – drums
  • Rob Bacon – guitar
  • Thomas McElroy – additional synthesizer
  • Daniel Crawford – additional synthesizer
  • Lemar Carter – drums
  • Sir Dylan – piano, recording engineering
  • Ernest Turner – piano
  • Brook D'Leau – drums
  • Charlie Bereal – guitar
  • Jairus Mozee – guitar
  • Ali Shaheed Muhammad – congas
  • Kelvin Wooten – upright piano, B-3 Organ
  • Gerry "The Gov" Brown – recording engineering
  • Hotae Alexander Jang – recording engineering, mix engineering
  • Charles Brungardt – recording engineering, mix engineering
  • Steve Rusch – recording engineering
  • Dave Kutch – mastering

Charts

Chart performance for Jimmy Lee
Chart (2019) Peak
position
French Albums (SNEP)[31] 170
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[32] 90
UK R&B Albums (OCC)[33] 7
US Top Album Sales (Billboard)[19] 25

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Gaillot, Ann-Derrick (September 19, 2019). "Raphael Saadiq: Jimmy Lee". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on October 26, 2019. Retrieved October 26, 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Kot, Greg (August 23, 2019). "Raphael Saadiq bears soulful witness to his family's anguish on 'Jimmy Lee'". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on October 26, 2019. Retrieved October 26, 2019.
  3. ↑ Hull, Tom (September 9, 2019). "Music Week". Tom Hull – on the Web. Archived from the original on August 10, 2020. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 Varga, George (January 22, 2020). "Raphael Saadiq will kick off his 'Jimmy Lee Tour' at San Diego's House of Blues". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Archived from the original on January 23, 2020. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  5. 1 2 Pappademas, Alex (August 15, 2019). "Raphael Saadiq Finally Put His Past on the Record". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 16, 2020. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  6. ↑ Hicks, Dylan (February 20, 2020). "From Tony Toni Toné' through 'Jimmy Lee,' Raphael Saadiq has crafted a unique career". City Pages. Archived from the original on February 22, 2020. Retrieved August 17, 2020.
  7. 1 2 3 Moore, Marcus J. (August 21, 2019). "Anatomy of a Song: How Raphael Saadiq wrote about addiction on Jimmy Lee". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on June 18, 2020. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  8. 1 2 3 Moayeri, Lily (October 30, 2019). "Raphael Saadiq Opens Up on Jimmy Lee". Mix. Archived from the original on August 11, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Slingerland, Calum (June 7, 2019). "Raphael Saadiq Returns with First New Album in Eight Years". Exclaim!. Archived from the original on September 1, 2019. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  10. 1 2 3 Aswad, Jem (August 23, 2019). "Album Review: Raphael Saadiq's 'Jimmy Lee'". Variety. Archived from the original on January 14, 2020. Retrieved January 22, 2020.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Christgau, Robert (November 13, 2019). "Consumer Guide: November, 2019". And It Don't Stop. Archived from the original on February 2, 2020. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  12. 1 2 3 Jordan, Jerilyn (February 12, 2020). "R&B prophet Raphael Saadiq isn't scared to go deep". Detroit Metro Times. Archived from the original on March 22, 2020. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  13. 1 2 3 4 Pontecorvo, Adriane (September 3, 2019). "'Jimmy Lee' Shows Why Raphael Saadiq Is One of the Most Compelling Voices in Modern Soul". PopMatters. Archived from the original on September 16, 2019. Retrieved November 17, 2019.
  14. 1 2 3 Morris, Damien (August 25, 2019). "Raphael Saadiq: Jimmy Lee review – beautiful songs of loss and addiction". The Observer. Archived from the original on November 17, 2019. Retrieved November 17, 2019.
  15. 1 2 Trageser, Stephen (2020). "Raphael Saadiq w/Jamila Woods & DJ Duggz". Nashville Scene. Archived from the original on October 18, 2020. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  16. 1 2 3 4 Reyes-Kulkarni, Saby (August 23, 2019). "Raphael Saadiq: Jimmy Lee Review". Paste. Archived from the original on October 26, 2019. Retrieved October 26, 2019.
  17. ↑ "Something Keeps Calling - Single". rainbowrecordsde. Retrieved October 17, 2020.
  18. ↑ "Glory to the Veins - Single". rainbowrecordsde. Retrieved October 17, 2020.
  19. 1 2 "Raphael Saadiq Chart History (Top Album Sales)". Billboard. Retrieved October 26, 2019.
  20. 1 2 "Jimmy Lee by Raphael Saadiq Reviews and Tracks". Metacritic. Archived from the original on June 4, 2020. Retrieved October 26, 2019.
  21. ↑ Kellman, Andy. "Jimmy Lee – Raphael Saadiq". AllMusic. Archived from the original on October 6, 2019. Retrieved October 26, 2019.
  22. ↑ "Album reviews: Raphael Saadiq, Jay Som, Tyler Childers". Daily Republic. August 27, 2019. Archived from the original on February 2, 2020. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  23. ↑ Blondeel, Kurt (September 10, 2019). "Nooit kwam Raphael Saadiq straffer uit de hoek dan op zijn nieuwe plaat". Knack (in Dutch). Archived from the original on June 16, 2020. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  24. 1 2 Yates, Steve (October 2019). "Raphael Saadiq: Jimmy Lee". Q. No. 403. p. 110.
  25. ↑ "Raphael Saadiq Music Profile". Metacritic. Archived from the original on November 14, 2012. Retrieved July 15, 2020.
  26. ↑ Dewitt, Ellen (April 26, 2020). "100 best albums of the 21st century, according to critics". SFGate. Archived from the original on June 5, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  27. ↑ Kot, Greg (December 3, 2019). "Greg Kot's best albums of 2019, including Raphael Saadiq, Nick Cave, Michael Kiwanuka, Sturgill Simpson". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on June 7, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  28. ↑ Powers, Ann (December 17, 2019). "The album is evolving". Slate. Archived from the original on September 28, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  29. ↑ Raphael Saadiq – Jimmy Lee (Vinyl liner notes). Columbia Records. Catalog no.: 19075965501
  30. ↑ "Jimmy Lee – Raphael Saadiq – Credits". AllMusic. Archived from the original on July 15, 2020. Retrieved July 15, 2020.
  31. ↑ "Lescharts.com – Raphael Saadiq – Jimmy Lee". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 26, 2019.
  32. ↑ "Swisscharts.com – Raphael Saadiq – Jimmy Lee". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 26, 2019.
  33. ↑ "Official R&B Albums Chart Top 40". Official Charts Company. Retrieved October 26, 2019.

Further reading

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