2021 Uproxx Music Critics Poll

Jazmine Sullivan’s ‘Heaux Tales’ Is A Classic Work Of Black Feminism

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Jazmine Sullivan Critics Poll
Getty Image/Ralph Ordaz

Upon posing on the daring album cover for Heaux Tales -– with a statuesque Jazmine Sullivan in her translucent biker shorts glory -– the Philly-bred singer-songwriter put longtime fans on notice that they were in for a new era. On Heaux Tales, Sullivan’s first effort in six years that comes in 5th in the 2021 Uproxx Music Critics Poll, she unlocks personal terrain through unflinching narratives of insecurities, sexual conquests, and materialism. Leading a fellowship of close friends who share spoken vignettes of their most esteemed and regrettable experiences as women, Heaux Tales finds Sullivan becoming a new vanguard of feminism in music, giving voice to Black women who are still in search of themselves.

On previous albums Fearless, Love Me Back, and Reality Show, Sullivan had all the makings of a rising soul icon, with ambitious songwriting, genre-bending production, and belty vocals. In comparison to Heaux Tales, her content was bereft of intimate portraits that she sought for Black women listeners, an intention that she aimed to reach during her post-Reality Show hiatus. Taking a breather from music to shake the aftereffects of leaving an abusive relationship, Sullivan returned with profound strength, seeking to interview her friends about their own trials in love and loss. With her sister circle willing to record their innermost thoughts and conversations as interludes on Heaux Tales, their words give an intrinsic, meditative texture to the EP.

In an Essence interview with Issa Rae, Sullivan spoke about the collaborative purpose behind Heaux Tales:

“For this project, it was important for me to share the stories of the women I love and hold dear to my heart. I feel like they are just as banging and dynamic as me. And I want to give space and opportunity to women, period. I feel like we get caught up in thinking there’s “only one” of us.”

Rapt with harrowing interludes that center one woman at a time — with gospel-tinged “Donna’s Tale” practically being a sermon on ‘tricking’ in relationships –- Heaux Tales is an R&B canon of solidarity. Mirroring spoken interludes in piercing, soul-baring song form, Sullivan honors the resilience of Black women, with respect for their most vulnerable musings. On album opener “Bodies,” she acts as a guilt-ridden conscience following a drunken night out and sobering morning where Sullivan doesn’t recognize who she’s woken up beside. While triggering, “Bodies” resonates with Black women who endure their own personal misogynoir about “pilin’ up bodies on bodies on bodies.”

Sullivan’s vocals act as a sinew for the expressive, conversational therapy of Heaux Tales, where listeners are invited to relate to honest monologues without shame. Raised by a playwright mother and poet grandmother, Sullivan closely followed her matriarch’s teachings, scripting emblematic ballads that trace each tale. Instead of Sullivan titling her friends’ ruminations as interludes, she lauds them as ‘tales,’ preserving their messages and putting them center stage.

In the introductory interlude, “Antoinette’s Tale,” Sullivan’s friend and podcaster Antoinette Henry tackles the patriarchy by revering women’s ownership over their sexuality. The interlude shifts into lead-single “Pick Up Your Feelings” a searing call to men to let go of control and broken relationship ties. Like the beatnik production on “Pick Up Your Feelings,” during the Heaux Tales performance round-up earlier this year, Sullivan was occasionally seen donning ’60s-esque mod attire and hairstyles, which can be interpreted as an homage to the legacy of Black women in R&B and soul.

Segueing into “Ari’s Tale,” narrated by Shea Butter Baby delight Ari Lennox, the singer recalls being mesmerized under the sexual dominance of a former partner, praising various deities and hypnotically repeating “this is just my truth.” Before joining Lennox on the salacious, sex-amped anthem “On It,” Sullivan grapples with sexual infatuation over haunting a Key Wane production on “Put It Down.” While controversial for its message of sponsoring undeserving men, “Put It Down” rings true with women who’ve been disoriented in the throes of lust.

Following “Donna’s Tale,” where Sullivan’s godmother Donna Anderson reveals lessons in ‘tricking,’ Heaux Tales lands into its sole collaboration with a male artist. Featuring Anderson .Paak, one-half of Silk Sonic, “Price Tags” is a raspy, harmonic ode to women getting their money up by taking advantage of naïve men.

“Price Tags” is trailed by “Rashida’s Tale” where Sullivan’s friend Rashida Northington describes a moment of infidelity where she cheated on her former fiancée with a friend of the couple. Sullivan’s vocals softly cascade in the background of Northington’s account, arriving at “Lost Ones” where the singer reveals that “sometimes it’s too late to make amends.” On Heaux Tales, there’s no room for judgment, just women coming face-to-face with deep-rooted taboos. There’s power in acceptance.

In an interview with Pitchfork, Sullivan spoke about women taking accountability for their mistakes in order to give themselves grace:

“In order to move on and heal and enjoy the life that you’re still living, you have to forgive yourself. I was going through that process while making the project, and I want other women who I know are feeling the same way to know that it’s okay. Learn from your mistakes and move the eff on.”

Heaux Tales takes those mistakes and turns them into passages of healing. With Sullivan’s robust vocals being an anomaly in the current age of R&B. the album is an embodiment of #ProtectBlackWomen, venturing through unguarded stories that transform into empowering wisdom.

As Sullivan’s strongest effort yet, Heaux Tales instantly garnered widespread critical acclaim for its truth, the singer nabbing two 2021 Soul Train Awards for Album of the Year and Best R&B/Soul Female Artist. At the 2021 BET Awards, Sullivan won Album of the Year, and in the 63rd Grammy Awards in 2022, the vocalist will be up for Best R&B Album, Best R&B Performance, and Best R&B Song, the latter two nominations for “Pick Up Your Feelings.”

With minimalist soundscapes, Jazmine Sullivan’s evocative impact shines through. Leading a crusade of Black women through their plights, Heaux Tales is a stirring gaze into the unapologetic future of feminism.

Little Simz May Be At The Start Of Her Own, One-Woman British Invasion

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Little Simz Critics Poll
Getty Image/Ralph Ordaz

From the epic opening strains of “Introvert,” the introductory track on Little Simz’s sweeping, eclectic new album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, you know you’re in for something special. The album is equal parts fantasy storybook and intimate journal marked all the way through by the London native’s wit and vulnerability. It’s no wonder that it has been so highly regarded, perching neatly near the top of so many publications’ 2021 year-end lists. Her broad-ranging and nigh universal critical acclaim could be the first step toward her gaining and maintaining a toehold on the public’s attention stateside.

Such a feat would put her in rare company; while there have been several British rappers to develop cult followings in the US, few of them ever did so while maintaining such a stark, British outlook on the art form. Going back to the 1980s, rappers like Monie Love and Slick Rick switched up their accents to fit in — you’d hardly know they weren’t from New York’s concrete jungle hearing them rap alongside contemporaries like Queen Latifah and Doug E. Fresh. In the ’90s and 2000s, MF DOOM earned a stranglehold on the city’s underground scene, but again, there were many who were unaware of his origins until his visa issues in 2010.

Hell, even 21 Savage was unaware of his own British citizenship until recently, and his struggles to remain in the country in which he grew up have highlighted this nation’s archaic and byzantine approach to immigration policy. For all intents and purposes, he’s an Atlantan at heart and sounds like it. And while there was a minor grime explosion here in the US, it was largely spearheaded by another immigrant, Drake, who made a point of collaborating with artists like Skepta and Headie One. However, their popularity on their own feels limited to their joint works with artists who already hold a certain degree of social capital.

Simz is different. Her growing popularity on this side of the pond has come organically, without the help of flashy local features, which she has mostly eschewed since her signature 2017 project Stillness In Wonderland, on which the first inklings of her fantastical flourishes began to sprout. 2019’s Grey Area continued in much the same vein, showcasing the Brit’s verbal virtuosity and singular approach to left-of-center production. Unlike many of her countrymen, she seems distinctly disinterested in integrating popular local sounds — there’s no trap and nothing that could be counted as classic boom-bap either.

Nor does she employ the glitchy, sometimes off-putting digital sounds that have distinguished grime and drill, the two main British exports in rap-focused music, although she has dabbled in them from time to time. Instead, the production on SIMBI (it’s her name, see) is organic, pulsing with the living energy of the score from an epic, swords-and-sorcerers film series like Lord Of The Rings or Game Of Thrones. There is that regal-sounding intro, the Blaxploitation big band feel of the soul-baring “I Love You, I Hate You,” the militant funk of “Standing Ovation,” and the moody ballad, “How Did You Get Here.”

She also sticks close to her roots, incorporating West African rhythms into tracks like “Point And Kill” and “Fear No Man.” And despite the similarity of their titles, Simz’s approach to the praise of her gender on “Woman” is a far cry from Doja Cat’s, backed by a slinky beat and loungey instrumentation supported by Cleo Sol’s lilting chorus. Through it all, Simz’s poised flow anchors the wide-ranging production, drawing listeners in with its conspiratorial quiet. Though she rarely raises her voice, she still wields it like a dagger, whirling and flashing in dextrous patterns with the cool of concrete at twilight.

While hip-hop and rock-and-roll are cousins with unsurprisingly similar origins and parallel trajectories over the course of their respective eras of dominance in global pop culture, there’s one area in which they diverge. After rock swept the globe, the US was visited upon by the acts it had inspired, like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, who were met with an equally fervent enthusiasm to the one that brought these acts to our shores seeking their fortunes here. While rap has been met with just as much excitement around the world, that love has rarely been reciprocated by Americans who’ve kept international hip-hop acts at arm’s length.

Ironically, as I write this, the Disney+ streaming service hosts a documentary about The Beatles, their process, and their popularity called The Beatles: Get Back which stitches together close to eight hours of footage of the Liverpool band noodling around and creating some of their beloved works. It’s hard to say whether we’ll be watching a similar show about any British hip-hop acts in 50 years — after all, times, they have a-changed — but right now, Little Simz is at the cusp of starting her own British Invasion, one that could prove to be every bit as fascinating and influential as the original.

It’s Brutal Out Here: This Year’s Albums That Critiqued Sexism In The Music Industry

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Sexism In The Music Industry
Getty Image/Ralph Ordaz

Last month, Dr. Luke, despite accusations of rape, sexual assault, and emotional abuse by Kesha, charted at No. 1 on Billboard’s ranking of hot producers. Also last month, The Recording Academy nominated comedian Louis C.K. for a Grammy, despite numerous accusations of sexual misconduct. This is all to say that the music industry often has no regard for the safety of women.

This becomes more and more obvious over time. Earlier this year, it seemed like we, as a collective society, were reflecting on the way we treated Britney Spears. Our recognition of this situation of sexism, though, was quickly commodified and made into a documentary, which happens quite frequently, giving the impression that speaking out about trauma in this industry is only necessary if it is profitable.

So maybe it was inevitable that some of the biggest releases this year would consist of women verbalizing the poor treatment they deal with in the process of making and releasing art. Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour, which arrived in May after the unspooling of memorable, wildly successful singles, painted a portrait of a young woman who’s tired of having to constantly prove herself as smarter and more mature than anyone would typically estimate. Many people — mostly men — were surprised that they took a liking to this female pop star; lots of pretentious music-lovers argued with one another over the genre of her songs. Are we allowed to throw the term rock in there? Alternative? Punk? (On a similar note, a lot of headlines dubbed Sour as a breakup album, and a lot of other headlines claimed it is not “just” a breakup album. They’re right, it’s not, but would it be a problem if it was?)

But that’s beside the point. There’s reason to distrust Rodrigo; she was, after all, a Disney kid, and that can’t be ignored when discussing the colossal impact her debut album had in the music world this year. However, one of the reasons Sour did so well is that it makes you forget all about that. The fierce first track, “Brutal,” is both vulnerable and bombastic, especially when she sings: “And I’m so tired that I might / Quit my job, start a new life / And they’d all be so disappointed / ’Cause who am I, if not exploited?” This — coming from an 18-year-old woman who played a role in the High School Musical mockumentary series — felt monumental. How often is exploitation referred to in pop music, let alone named specifically?

And a lot of this returns to the fact that, well, she is literally a teenager. A majority of the attention that’s placed on her is due to her youth, and Sour seemed determined to not let any listener find her to be naïve. She doesn’t want to be condescended or underestimated.

More recently, Taylor Swift expressed a similar sentiment on her re-recording of the 2012 Red. Her struggles with the industry were made apparent in 2020 when Scooter Braun sold her masters so that she would no longer own her past work. “Nothing New” is a collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers that’s on the new version of Red, the version she created in order to have ownership and agency over it. The beginning lines capture the treatment of women in an industry that benefits from belittling them: “They tell you while you’re young / ‘Girls, go out and have your fun’ / Then they hunt and slay the ones who actually do it / Criticize the way you fly when you’re soarin’ through the sky.” Having Bridgers hop on this track conveys the way this problem hasn’t changed since Swift wrote the song around 2012; Bridgers is the next woman in the spotlight who is wondering: “Lord, what will become of me / Once I’ve lost my novelty?”

Billie Eilish wonders this on Happier Than Ever. After turning 19, she sings on the opening track: “I’m getting older, I think I’m aging well / I wish someone had told me I’d be doing this by myself.” It’s quite obvious that the music industry often pedestals women who are in their late teenage years; the younger women are, the easier they are to be exploited and fetishized. Yet the pressures are higher, and the rate at which they grow up is intensified. This is all only exacerbated by the fact that millions of people jumped at the opportunity to sexualize and objectify these women as soon as they turn 18, as if they never viewed her as an actual person to begin with.

Similar to Rodrigo, she sings: “Things I once enjoyed / Just keep me employed now.” It really portrays the loss of sincerity and genuine creative drive once art is transformed into a career. A lot of the album reckons with these sort of meta themes; the title itself refers to the dissonance between Eilish’s private and public life. Her personal priority to be happy is constantly skewed by what stories the media are making up about her.

So much is lost when a woman puts vulnerable art into the world. It is often judged to fit into stereotypes; the “sad girl” genre is the prime example of this, showing that women cannot express feelings in music without being lumped into a category that reinforces the idea that their gender inherently makes them “hysterical” and “too emotional.” What else is lost is the musician’s ability to exist as just a being; on “Blouse,” from Clairo’s July album Sling, she repeats: “If touch could make them hear / then touch me now.” She’s sacrificing her boundaries just to be listened to, and this seems to be a requirement for every woman who makes music. It doesn’t help that the industry intentionally spotlights young, white, skinny, cis, and conventionally pretty women; the media can view them as an interchangeable type. This can obviously weigh on a musician, who is offering something sincere to an industry that repays by treating them as disposable.

All of these releases have done extremely well this year, whether it be through sales or streams or award nominations or placement on year-end polls, like Uproxx’s. But the industry has failed to actually listen to the actual work it’s uplifting. Change starts with viewing musicians as more than workers and women as more than objects.