A tough title to live up to – but Raphael makes it happen! The album's as wonderful as you might think – all the deeply soulful styles Saadiq worked out with Tony Toni Tone, taken back through a historical range of soul music – firmly planted in a legacy that begins with Stevie Wonder, runs through Maxwell and D'Angelo, and which points the way towards the future of urban soul. Backings are very much in the beats-n-keyboards mode, but Raphael works out such a wide range of moods and modes that the album avoids any of the shortcomings of other albums in such a style. Includes guest performances by Angie Stone, Leslie Wilson, T-Boz, Calvin Richardson, and D'Angelo – and titles that include "Doing What I Can", "Be Here", "Still Pay", "You're The One That I Like", "Excuse Me", "Tick Tock", "People", "Faithful", "Make My Day", "Blind Man", "Different Times", "What's Life Like", and "Skyy, Can You Feel Me". LP, Vinyl record album

A tremendous album from Thundercat – an artist who just seems to get better and better with every new record, and who's maybe here defining a genre that's completely unto himself! The record is soulful, and has a lot of contemporary cosmic currents – but it's also more far-reaching and fluid than anything that Thundercat's ever given us before – still done with key help from Flying Lotus, but with a majestic, confident quality that seems to have the duo ready to take over the universe! The airy soulful vocals are great, but the rhythms and instrumentation are maybe even more compelling – as there's a number of tunes here that are almost impossible to describe in words, even though they're instantly appealing and wonderfully soulful – a balance that's the sort of special genius from an artist who's ready to write himself into the pop music history books with a key release like this. There's a whole host of guests – including Ty Dolla Sign, Childish Gambino, Louis Cole, Kamasi Washington, Badbadnotgood, Miguel Atwood Ferguson, and many others – but it's clear that the Thundercat/Flying Lotus axis holds all the power – on titles that include "Fair Chance", "Funny Thing", "How Sway", "Miguel's Happy Dance", "Lost In Space/Great Scott/22-26", "Interstellar Love", "Overseas", "Dragonball Durag", "King Of The Hill", and "Existential Dread". (New Grooves, Neo Soul) LP, Vinyl record album