Jazmine Sullivan Sings a Brave New World on “Reality Show”

Darnell Moore (@moore_darnell) is a Musiqology Advisory Board Member and Co-Founder of the You Belong Initiative.

Jazmine Sullivan’s third LP, Reality Show, is a combination of gritty lyricism and hypnotizing vocals. Her swoon-inducing sound combines the unearthly musicality found in the most spirited of Black churches on the narrow streets of Philly with the worldly erotic feel of soulful love songs that blazed at Black Lily Nights at the once-revered Philly staple for Black musicians, The Five Spot. But she is no saintly angel and makes no claims to be. She is a sangin’ sage.

Each song is an attempt to remix our senses of what it means to be fully human, to be present, to be real in a mass-mediated world where we are taught to be representations and avatars. This is the age of reality TV except that we are often confronted with artificial lives on and off screen.

In her newest joint, Jazmine offers a return to the real. And for some fans, the listening journey may be uneasy because in her lyrics we might be forced to grapple with the messy narratives some of us would love to keep hidden.

//Yeah my hair and my ass fake, but so what?
I get my rent paid with it and my tits get me trips
To places I can’t pronounce right
He said he’d keep it coming if I keep my body tight
And them bitches stay mad cause I’m living the life
‘Cause I’m living the life, oh// – from “Mascara”

Like “Mascara,” the other songs on the album are episodes in the sordid, complex and arresting lives of the most unlikely, sometimes disreputable, characters Jazmine becomes with every note she sings. And she sings–sometimes like a canary spilling jaw-dropping details about one woman’s body that is used to pay rent or another desperately impoverished woman who manages her and her kids’ hunger by brandishing a gun.

//Everybody’s looking at me like I’m crazy
And I am maybe, but my bed is changing right now
Hands up cause motherfucker this is a stick up
But don’t be scared cause listen I ain’t come to hurt nobody
I just want all your money in your wallet out your pocket// –from “Silver Lining”//

Jazmine brings to life Black characters, whom listeners can imagine roaming the bustling streets of urban America, as she commits to a vocal sound that combines the best of Black musical styles representative of the soul/jazz/bop Philly Sound. Jazmine sings the blues and jazzes love and raps life. And it is pure emotion-consuming fire…to me anyway. It is almost as if she is singing lives she has known and knows in the city she calls home.

Jazmine also conjures a bit of Brit Soul on some tracks like “Stupid Girl.” Amy Winehouse comes to mind, but the album also flows out of, and away from, the poetic lyricism of Philly Soul artists like Jill Scott, Vivian Green, Musiq, Kindred the Family Soul, and even Bilal. “Reality Show” is a different take on the Philly Sound, however, in my view, It’s braver.