Sunday Soul: Bilal

My love/hate relationship with Bilal has come full circle.  It all started when I decided to surreptitiously call myself “Soulsista” on Blackplanet…the original MySpace for Black folk. I couldn’t knowingly have a username like Soulsista and walk with my head held high, however, if I didn’t at least have the man’s album. So I went out and bought 1st Born Second. I listened to it once, twice, three times and hated it, except of course for “Soulsista” and this other D’Angelo-tinged single “Sometimes.”It took about three to four more years to absolutely like and subsequently love it.

Now here we are in 2010 with his latest, Airtight’s Revenge, and while I didn’t hate it the first time I heard it two weeks ago, it did take some getting used to.  The 13-track CD is typical Bilal but just a tad wiser, evident in tracks like “Little One,” where he talks about his hopes and dreams for his little one and “Move On” where he laments over a past lover before ultimately making up his mind to…move on.  Bilal’s classical music background makes itself known as he taps into his worldly background, bringing along some Jazz, rock, funk, folk and even a little deep house to make Airtight Revenge, his revenge against that pesky ole’ Neo Soul label.  And so it makes absolute perfect sense that even though a couple songs at times have me thinking WTF, there are a few songs that make me wonder WTF took him so long to release this? One such single is “Think it Over.” Instead of describing it, I’ll just go ahead and let you listen…

Fave line, “Like King and Coretta, I thought we could change the world.” We can…

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