For all the sounds love gave us â from Teddy Pendergrass and Luther Vandross summoning screams of passion at concerts from a generation of women Iâm still learning to understand, to SWV and Aaliyah drawing out the sensuality of vulnerability â it was you, Alicia, who consolidated a sound of romance I grew to recognise; a longing love that spanned generations but lived in the now. âGrownâ but naive enough to live vicariously through.
In my dreams Iâd reenact the moment you call up Mos Defâs character âMichaelâ, picking up the house phone after 6pm when house-to-house calls were free, belling the landline of someoneâs son. Iâd swap the coffee house on 39th and Lennox for Mr Thompsonâs maths class, and the fly blue suit with the shining cufflinks for the way he wore his white polo shirt under his school blazer, clocking his Just Do It bag sitting slanted across his torso like it belonged there.