There's not much in this world that I love more than queen muva, Helen Folasade Adu. My mother used to tell me that she would have her sing to me when I was in the womb, which may be why her music has followed me from adolescence into adulthood (where she absolutely blasts regularly). Additionally, I grew up often hearing that sultry voice blaring throughout the house, as it was common for Sade Lover's Live DVD to be playing on infamous, clean-up Sundays. Sure, most of Sade's songs were created and released before I could even walk, but of course, that never mattered, her music always managed to translate regardless. And her lowkey aesthetic and dark, sexy, timeless, indie style-of-music, always seemed to hit the spot. Each classic: unmatched. Her voice: subtle, but powerful. And the melodies: carefully crafted just enough to get lost in.
In an era of hair bands, adult contemporary power players, a hip-hop uprising, and androgynous stars such as Bowie, Prince and Elton John, Sade showed that they could compete; compete as a black woman fronting white musicians, something never really seen before in it's time. Not many in this world make the caliber of classics that she has sung, yet her intentional and notorious out-of-the-spotlight persona, directly cheated our ideas of fame, and with it all, she is still one of the most beloved, brilliant, and important crooners of all time.
Recently, the queen and her band, Sade (because remember, Sade is the actual band's name), released an anniversary box set which is a collection of the band's six studio albums. That's right ladies, Diamond Life (1984), Promise (1985), Stronger Than Pride (1988), Love Deluxe (1992), Lovers Rock (2000), and Soldier Of Love (2010) have all been remastered and compiled into a career-spanning vinyl box set complete with a very detailed, intricate remastering process (girl, stop all that screaming!)
This Farwas released on October 9 through Sony music, and arrives on the heels of the 10th anniversary of Solider of Love's initial release. And as its title hints, the collection marks a milestone, but also suggests there's more to come. #crossesfingers
We wanted to take a moment to list out each album included in This Far to discuss the impact, history, and our favorite Sade songs on that album. So, if you haven't already, grab that wine and throw on Sade, sis, because we're vibing in here today!
Diamond Life (1984)
When Diamond Life hit stores in July of 1984, it changed the landscape. The record blew open an already vibrant rhythm and blues scene in the UK, where the band is from, and helped to dominate it as capable of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with its American counterparts. Further, Sade's rise to prominence cemented that a woman of color fronting a band of white male musicians, could be a persuasive platinum seller as much as any British music such as The Beatles, Sting, etc.
A 1985, New York Times article, and a sure reflection of the times, said about the album:
''Diamond Life'' has already sold just under a million copies in England (the equivalent of three million in the United States) and has spawned three international hits. The star of the group is a self-possessed 24-year-old singer-songwriter of Nigerian and British descent, named Sade Adu, who was born in Nigeria and brought up in the English coastal resort town of Clacton. Stunningly photogenic, Miss Adu possesses a dusky, haunting pop-jazz alto whose blase sensuality perfectly matches her sleek appearance. As an icon of a ''new pop elegance,'' Miss Adu already has the American fashion press stampeding after her."
With classics such as "Smooth Operator", "Cherry Pie", and "Your Love Is King", Diamond Life, has sold over 10+ million copies worldwide, becoming one of the top-selling debut recordings of the era and the best-selling debut album by a British female vocalist ever, a record that has stood for over 24 years.
Promise (1985)
To date, Promise is probably the album that resonates with me most. The band's second studio album boasts Sade songs such as "Is it a Crime", "Sweetest Taboo", and "Jezebel", as its lead tracks, catapulting Sade into superstardom with one million copies sold in the US, and a certified quadruple platinum production by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Paired with Diamond Life, the two act as a real life soundtrack for melodic euphoria.
The album turns 35 in November of 2020 and still rages as one of the band's most impressive bodies of work.
Stronger Than Pride (1988)
Perhaps one of Sade's most recognizable albums, and my personal favorite—if there is a such thing when it comes to Sade—is their third studio album, Stronger Than Pride. Released in 1988, three years prior to a back-to-back reign, Stronger Than Pride houses cult favorites: "Keep Looking", "Paradise", and title track, "Love Is Stronger Than Pride". She sings, "I can't hate you, Although I have tried..."
A mooddddd. Listen, throw this one on, and you're bound to get lost, sis. Lost in a type of music that not many can promise to you these days.
To-date, Stronger Than Pride has sold over four million albums, and Pitchfork listed it as one of the top 200 albums of the 80's. Also, fun fact, Sade made her acting debut as Athene Duncannon in the 1986 British film, Absolute Beginners, as well as sung on the movie's accompanying soundtrack. Of the album, Sade said:
"One of the reasons the album is how it is because allowed to be and it was quite free it was allowed to be that way. And I was away from the media, I was away from any suppression from the record company. We were all sort of in our own little environment and I think, if anything, that comes through on the album."
Received with open arms, and during what was one of the more competitive years in music, it peaked at Number 7 on the Billboard 200.
"I still really really love you, Love is stronger than pride." Whew.
Love Deluxe (1992)
Sade welcomed us into the 90's with Love Deluxe, the fourth studio album that housed Sade jams such as "No Ordinary Love", "Kiss of Life", and "Cherish the Day". Love Deluxe was released a full four years following Stronger than Pride, yetretained the band's classy and distinctive style. It was (and still is) seen by many as the band's best, a high-point in a career with many high-points. Although, Love Deluxe was less received and critically acclaimed of the prior three albums, it positioned the band in a more mainstream realm of music.
"No Ordinary Love" is the best known song, due to winning the 1994 Grammy for Best R&B performance, and was featured on the soundtrack of the 1993 movie, Indecent Proposal.
Love Deluxe was the only album the band release in the 90's. Following this album, Sade took a hiatus, where she had her first child, and the band's guitarist and saxophone player went on to develop the career of another R&B artist that you may know as...Maxwell.
Lover's Rock (2000)
It's been 20 years since this album was released but it's as sleek, refined, elegant and sultry as ever. Lovers Rock was released in November 2000, and it was titled after a style of reggae known as 'lovers rock'. All of Sade's music will have you grabbing bae, but the opening track, "By Your Side", will have you falling in love with him all over again.
Lovers Rock was met with mostly positive reviews, who praised the band's new sound. The album also earned Sade the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album in 2002. Commercially, the album reached number three on the US Billboard 200, and has since been certified triple platinum, having sold 3.9 million copies in the US.
This album proved that Sade can wait as long as she damn pleases between albums and there will always be an audience waiting.
Soldier of Love (2010)
In the band's most recent body of work—and by "recent", I mean a decade ago—enters Soldier of Love. This album was their last, complete with a full 60-stop international tour. Soldier of Love has sold over three million copies and went to #1 in multiple countries. Entertainment Weekly featured Soldier of Love in their "Must List" and gave the album an "A", and Rolling Stone wrote "it's unimpeachably excellent."
The album went on to be nominated for multiple awards and gained various accolades. A high-performance work of art, in a world where we simply don't, and won't, know her next move. And I'm OK with that, ten years later.
But in the meantime, as we wait for what they have up their sleeves..."I'm a soldier of love. Every day and night."
Feature image courtesy of Sony Music/Sade
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A Goddard College graduate, who earned an MFA from Pratt Institute and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Marymount Manhattan College, Mahogany offers unapologetic realness with a side of grace and empowerment. "I started touring locally. I started creating chat books so that those poems will go in the hands of the people who were sitting in the rooms," she shared.
"And then I started facilitating poetry workshops, so I used my chat books as curriculum. And that, in turn, allowed me to further invest in my art and show the community and people who were hiring me that it wasn't just a one-off, that it's not just, you know, a fly by night—that I am invested in this art as much as I am invested in your community, in your children's learning, in our growth."
Mahogany has a special way of moving audiences, and her superpower sparks shifts in perspective, post-performance introspection, and strengthening of community bonds, especially among Black women. (One can undeniably recognize her gift for arousal of the spirit and mind merely from her listening to her insights from the other side of a Google Hangout call. I can only imagine the soul-stirring, top-tier sensory encounter when watching her perform in person.)
In this chat with xoNecole, Mahogany reflects on sustaining a creative career, the aftermath of writing a banned book, and using poetry for both healing, community-building, and activism.
Anthony Artis
xoNecole: What are three key things that have laid the foundation for a sustainable creative career for you?
Mahogany L Browne: What has helped me is that I'm willing to go in being an expert at knowing poetry and knowing the way in which art can change the landscape of our lives, not just as a poet, but also as a poetry facilitator. How you move through classes, those things are mastered, right? So when I go into another space that's maybe tech-heavy, I don't mind learning and being, you know, a student of the wonder of how we can make this magic, work together.
Two, you’ve got to know how to pivot. Sometimes we say, ‘Alright, this is what my life is going to be. I'm going to be a New York Times best-selling author. I'm going to, you know, have an album that's Grammy-nominated. And then, say you get dropped from your record label. That doesn't mean you can't make an album anymore. You can also still create an album that can be submitted to the Grammys. So, what does a pivot look like as an artist who doesn't have an institution behind them? Pivot being a student of the wonder.
Relationships also really help. How do I serve the community? And in turn, that tells me how the community can show up. For me, I have long-standing ties with a community that will outlast my one life. So, what does it mean to create space where these relationships can develop, can be nurtured, can be rooted, can be cultivated? Creating space—it happens through relationships.
xoN: With today’s economic challenges, what does your current creative process look like, and what are you working on?
MB: I’m always thinking five years ahead. I just reviewed the pages for two children’s books and recently released a YA novel. I’m drafting an adult fiction manuscript now.
Anything I create is founded with the root of poetry, but it can exist in captions. It can exist in commercials. It can exist as a musical. So that's where I’m at now.
xoN: You started performing "Black Girl Magic" in 2013, had an acclaimed performance of it via PBS and the work went on to viral success shortly after. Talk more about the inspiration. And what do you think about the continued relevance more than a decade later?
MB: I wrote it as a rally cry for the mothers who had been keeping themselves truly in harm's way by, you know, being a part of the community right after the death of their child or their loved one. They are usually mothers of victims of police brutality—and just seeing how they showed up in these community spaces, they are devout to the cause but obviously still grieving.
"I wanted this poem to be just a space of reclamation, of joy and of you, of your light, of your shine, of your brilliance, in any which way in which you fashion. Every room you enter is the room you deserve to be in. What does it mean to have a poem like that that exists?"
And the first time I did the poem, the Weeping that occurred, right? It was like this blood-letting of sorts. The next time I performed it, I'm moved to tears because I'm seeing how it's affecting other women who have just been waiting to hear, ‘You belong. You deserve. You are good. We see you. Thank you, despite everything that they said to make you regret being born in this beautiful brown, dark-skinned, light-skinned, but Black body.’
Black women are the backbone—period. Point blank. And so, that that poem became a necessity, not just to the fortitude of Black women in the community, but like you know, in service of healing the Black women.
xoN: One of your books was banned at a school in Boston, and it was later reinstated due to parental and activist support. What was that experience like?
MB: Well, I think it happened because they were racist. That's it. Point blank. The reversal of it was empowering, right? I realized, oh, I thought we just had to sit here and be on a banned book list. But no, parents are actually the leaders of this charge.
So to see that, the parents said, ‘Nah, we're not gonna let you take this book out of my baby’s school just because it's a Black kid on the front saying, ‘Woke’ and they're talking about being a global citizen. They're talking about accountability. They're talking about accessibility. They're talking about allyship, and you don't want them to have compassion or empathy or have even an understanding, right? So no, we rebuke that, and we want this book here anyway.’ To see that happen in that way. I was, like, reaffirmed. Absolutely.
xoN: You recently organized the Black Girl Magic Ball at the Lincoln Center in New York. Honorees included author and entrepreneur Rachel Cargle and National Black Theater CEO Sade Lythcott. What impact did it have and what expanded legacy do you hope to leave with your creative works?
MB: I was really interested in not celebrating just the book, but celebrating the community that made the book possible. And so I gave out five awards to women doing that thing, like, what does it mean to be a Black girl in this world?
I just thought it was gonna be an amazing time. Everybody's gonna dress up—we're gonna celebrate each other. And boom, I then realized that it responded to like a gaping hole. There was a missing thing for Black girls of all walks of life, all ages, right?
"It's very intergenerational. That was intentional to come together and celebrate just being us."
You have all these instances where just being you is either the butt of a joke or it's diminished and not worthy of a specific title in these larger institutions. So what does it mean to just to be loved up on and celebrated?
It felt like a self-care project at first. You know, for the first couple of years, folks were coming and they were getting that sisterhood. They were getting that tribe work that they were missing in their everyday lives.
I love the Black Girl Magic Ball because we got us. If I go out with a bang, they'll remember that Mahogany worked her a** off to make sure all the Black girls everywhere knew that she was the light. We are the blueprint.
For more information on Mahogany L. Browne, her work, and her future projects, visit her website or follow her on IG @mobrowne.
Featured image by Anthony Artis
Anyway, all of the talk about vampires — you know, due to the film — did cause me to wonder something that might seem rather random, yet that’s oftentimes how my mind works: Do vampires give each other hickeys? As I Googled for an answer, besides a book that has a title close to that name, I did notice an ABC feature from when the vampire Twilight film series was all the rage several years back. It was inquiring if teens were suddenly biting each other (back then) because of the movie(s).
The sexologist who was interviewed came to the conclusion that since biting is “an extension of the hickey” and hickeys are (typically) considered to be passionate, that’s why teens were interested in doing it. As far as what vampires do with each other? I couldn’t find a definitive answer.
I dunno. With hickeys also being called “love bites” and “suck marks” and with folks oftentimes describing vampire-themed movies as sexy, I would think that they could. Either way, what we know for sure is that those of us in the real world do it — and so, in honor/acknowledgement of that, I figured that now would be a perfect time to share some facts about hickeys. Ready?
1. Humans Are Copying Animals When They Give Hickeys
Aight, so what exactly is the origin story of hickeys? It would seem that it came from the literature of authors who wrote about what animals like lions and wolves do whenever they are showing affection towards one another. Apparently, humans saw this and eventually began to follow suit.
Hey, that doesn’t sound so crazy to me, considering doggy style continues to be a fan favorite among our species, and…have you ever seen two cats have sex before? I have, more than once, and the male cat is typically biting on the female one, in her neck region, during the act. So, when I really stop to think about all of this, it definitely tracks.
2. Hickeys Are Oftentimes a Low-Key Power Play
Ah, perfect. If you click here, you will actually see a picture of two cats having sex, and — like I just said, the male cat is biting the female cat. One reason why is because male cat penises have barbs on them which can make the entry or exit of intercourse literally painful for the female. And so, the male cat holds her in place by biting her, so that she doesn’t run away. And yes, along these same lines, some believe that hickeys can serve as their own power dynamic shift, even among humans — especially based on where a person decides to put one. I guess it would be like “peeing on your territory” in a way — hmph, which is something else that animals tend to do.
anon GIF - Find & Share on GIPHYGiphy3. Hickeys Are Nothing More than a Bruise
Okay, so what actually causes a hickey to happen? Well, when someone sucks and gently bites on your skin, it can break some of the surface blood vessels that are underneath your skin to break. When that happens, it results in a bruise. If someone does this to you for about a half a minute, you should notice a hickey emerge in a matter of minutes and, depending on how “good” of a job they did, a hickey can stick around for as much as a couple of weeks.
4. “Temperature Play” Speeds Up the Healing Process of Hickeys
Again, depending on how “good” of a job someone did at giving you a hickey, it could last between two days and two weeks. If you want yours to fade faster, because, again, hickeys are a bruise, it’s a good idea to bring some temperature play into action. What I mean by that is, start off by putting an ice pack on your hickey for up to 10 minutes, twice a day, for the first two days.
Then, after 48 hours, apply a warm compress for 10 minutes a few times a day. You might also want to apply a bit of peppermint oil to your hickey and gently massage that area as well; that will help to bring more blood flow to the spot, so that your skin can heal faster.
5. If You Take Blood Thinners, Hickeys Will Last Longer
If you’re someone who takes blood thinners, that will keep hickeys aren’t for a longer period of time. That’s because blood thinners are specifically designed to slow down the blood clotting process that’s in your body. So, if you’re big on hickeys and you even take aspirin on a fairly regular basis, you’re gonna have to accept that the “hickey healing hacks” may not actually work for you (at least not as quickly or effectively).
6. Certain “Natural Things” Can Make Them Last Longer Too
Speaking of blood thinners, even if you aren’t on any meds, did you know that certain foods provide blood-thinning effects as well? Some of those include ginger, garlic, aloe, turmeric, and cayenne pepper, and even supplements including vitamin E and melatonin. Just something to keep in mind. (By the way, vitamin C and the bromelain in pineapples can help to heal hickeys as far as supplements and foods go).
7. No, Hickeys Will Not Give You Cancer
It actually wasn’t until I was doing research for this article that I even heard the myth that hickeys can give you cancer. What in the world? Yeah, if you heard that somewhere before, pay that tale no mind, because science absolutely says otherwise. For the most part, hickeys are relatively harmless.
8. They Can Give You an Infection, Though
And why did I just say, “for the most part”? Yeah, you caught that, huh? Well, there is an extreme instance where a woman had a stroke due to a hickey because it happened on top of a major artery — that’s hella rare, though. What is more common is oral herpes transmitted through hickeys.
Not to mention the fact that a hickey is usually a bruise more than a wound; however, if your skin does end up being broken or you’re giving a hickey and blood is somehow transmitted…well, I’m sure you could see how this could be potentially problematic. Bottom line, get — and stay getting — tested. Just to be on the safe side. Hickeys or not.
9. A Dream About Getting a Hickey Is Actually a Warning
Remember how I said earlier that sometimes the person who is giving the hickey is doing so as an act of power? Well, along those same lines, if you happen to dream that someone is giving you a love bite, keep in mind that it probably isn’t about anything sexual; usually, it means that you are either in a toxic or stressful situation and you’re trying to figure out if you should approach it with logic or emotion. The more you know.
10. Sometimes Pain Creates Pleasure
Someone who enjoys being tortured or humiliated during sex, they fall into a category that is known as sexual masochism — and no, that is not what I am referring to here. What I am speaking about is the fact that, because pain and pleasure sensations are housed in the same part of the brain, when mild pain is felt, that could be why it arouses you — and that could be why you may enjoy receiving hickeys (I mean, if you actually do). They both have been proven to create a dopamine and opioid surge, which can intensify your sexual responses and reactions.
____
Hickeys do tend to create a very polarizing response: folks either adore them or loathe them. Either way, now you know what they’re all about, so if you’re on the “A” team, share it with those who are also in your club.
It could make them appreciate hickeys — love bites, suck marks — that much more, chile.
Dig in. #wink
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Featured image by Giphy