Phoenix
In a lot of musical imaginations, Lyfe Jennings'The Phoenixwill occupy a space a few slots up from theHustle & Flowsoundtrack. As he proved on the prelude to this disc--the swift-selling, hype-generatingLyfe 268-192--he's an urban poet with an unsparing eye. When he's not laying out his grit-laden artistic process in what seems like a dozen spoken-word interludes, he's singing it as he sees it. On "S-E-X," that vision includes a sensitive-minded, daddy-like plea for abstinence among teen-age girls punched up by the sexy-sounding Lala Brown, and on the thump-thump slo-mo thrill ride "Ghetto Superman" it includes a pitiful remembrance of things past ("We grew up in the gutter eatin' peanut butter sandwiches/With no jam"). Part Curtis Mayfield, part Donny Hathaway, part Kanye West, and part John Legend, Jennings is determined to offer a long, tall drink to the spiritually dehydrated--he's massively musical (check his gentle acoustic guitar on "Down Here, Up There" and the raw soul of "The River") and enormously ambitious: It's no accident thatThe Phoenixplays like scuffed-up, 21st-century epic poetry in places. Real-world R&B; hasn't reached this far in a long time.--Tammy La Gorce