{"id":92227,"date":"2021-11-13T09:03:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-13T07:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/lovers-rock-sade\/"},"modified":"2021-11-10T18:15:48","modified_gmt":"2021-11-10T16:15:48","slug":"lovers-rock-sade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/lovers-rock-sade\/","title":{"rendered":"Lovers Rock: when Sade reunited with her first love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cI think our songs get lost in how people perceive them and how they get listened to. I didn’t want this record to be smoothed out. I wanted it to be rougher,\u201d<\/em>  Sade proclaimed when Lovers Rock<\/em> was released in 2000. The British group, who have captured the hearts of more than just a single generation from its inception in the \u201980s, have too often been overlooked. Perhaps by the glamorous image of its lead singer and their first big hits, such as the everlasting \u201cSmooth Operator\u201d, overlooking the fine sophistication in their music. To the ears of many, this ultra-chic, jazz-tinged R&B, which went against the trends of its time, was nothing but an \u201ceasy listening\u201d soundtrack for loved-up couples (slightly exaggerating here, but you get the idea).<\/em> In 1993, after having blessed us with her fourth album Love Deluxe<\/em>, now almost unanimously recognized as her true masterpiece, the enigmatic star retired from music to reconnect with her life behind the scenes, away from the media fanfare. In this time, her bandmates \u2013 guitarist and saxophonist Stuart Matthewman, bassist Paul Denman and keyboardist Andrew Hale \u2013 started a new project named Sweetback and in 1996 released, a too often forgotten, exhilarating self-titled album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following a sabbatical in Jamaica, which formed a nascent relationship with reggae producer Bob Morgan, the birth of her first child and a shower of gloomy rumors,  Sade eventually found herself back within music in the same way as she had left it: with utmost secrecy. In the meantime, the pop music game had been completely reshuffled. Suffice to say, the smooth and silky sounds of Sade and her band were no longer the standard in the industry, as Beyonc\u00e9 and others prepared to conquer the top of the charts, re-shaping its image with flashy, pop-centric R&B. \u201cI don’t think we’ve ever been ‘in’ date,\u201d<\/em> recalls Sade in an interview with The Fader<\/em> in 2000. \u201cI think we\u2019ve been out of date from the start.\u201d<\/em> A somewhat surprising comment, coming from an artist who\u2019s sold over 50 million albums worldwide. Eight years on from the release of Love Deluxe<\/em>, the singer continued to prove her disregard for trends by drawing inspiration from an important soundtrack to her own teenage years as well as for a whole section of London’s black youth in the \u201970s: \u201clovers rock\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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