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"Look, it's kinda childish to say, 'I'm trying to be the best,' because there's always going to be somebody who's gonna be better. I don't have to be the best I'm just trying to be good enough, you know?" He says: "I just want people to say that my music mattered, that they could put it on at 3 a.m., and it moved them and touched them. With worshipful reverence, he talks about his love of Hathaway, Gaye, Wonder, Al Green, James Brown, Sly Stone. Perhaps rightfully so, Musiq thinks it's too soon to define his role in the pantheon of contemporary R&B. "I'm just trying to get out of the whole industry state of mind right now," says the 5-foot-6 crooner.
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"Juslisen was something I was doing more to establish myself and give a little more."Īs he works the last leg of dates for Juslisen, Musiq is writing and recording a new album, which he hopes to release in the fall. "Aijuswanaseing was something I was doing to introduce myself," Musiq says. Like most serious artists, Musiq fans away categories, though his work firmly fits into R&B or what some may call "neo-soul." Hits like "Just Friends (Sunny)" and "Halfcrazy" seep into you with their understated groove as Musiq croons behind it in a nuanced, cream-and-coffee baritone. Unlike some of his male peers (namely the trite Glenn Lewis and the talented but painfully pretentious Maxwell), Musiq doesn't oversell a song with hyper-sexual lyrics or nerve-grating grunts and screams. While it covers only a fraction of Musiq's career, it does so with straightforward accuracy. His partners in this movement include a bevy of artists from the City of Brotherly Love (Jill Scott, Bilal, Kindred, the Jazzyfatnastees) and others, including Angie Stone, Ledisi and Syleena Johnson. Four of these songs - specifically 'Just Friends (Sunny),' 'Love,' 'Halfcrazy,' and 'Dontchange' - reached the Top Ten of Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart and made Musiq one of the most successful mature R&B artists of the early aughts. It's the kind of silky, organic sound that streamed from black radio in the '60s, '70s and early '80s. Since the release of his 2000 debut as Musiq Soulchild (he says he hasn't officially dropped the surname he's just going by his first name right now), the singer has been added to this so-called movement to revive straight-from-the-heart soul music.