Jaguar Wright
Denials Delusions And Decisions
| |
Somewhere in the second verse of the deliciously syncopated, psychedelically harmonized "I Don't Know," Jaguar Wright puts her cards on the table. Tormented by a no-good lover, exasperated by that old tug of war between desire and reason, she tells him, "I pay you money just to leave me lonely." It might be a stock line in a done-me-wrong song, but the twenty-four-year-old Wright - who was heard dispensing gospel fury on Jay-Z's MTV Unplugged late last year - delivers it with Philly-girl no-bullshit attitude and choir-singer conviction. That's the way she sings everything on the astoundingly eclectic Denials, Delusions and Decisions, which represents the latest from the Philly soul revolution.
Read More Wright's voice can be full of frustration, yet somehow she's poised enough to execute coy, remarkably agile jazz-diva leaps. And no matter what kind of mood she's in - whether slithering like a predator through a hip-hop joint (the string-orchestra-blessed "Ain't Nobody Playin' ") or carving up a rival ("2 Two Many") or offering a nine-minute motivational sermon on the topic of "Self Love" - Wright has that gift for telling a story with just the bends and cracks in her voice. BARRY WALTERS
(RS 889 - February 14, 2002)
|
