Jazmine Sullivan "Lions and Tigers"
Jazmine Sullivan might have re-acquainted listeners with what “real” R&B/ soul music should sound like on her outstanding debut single, “Need U Bad”, yet a cautious embracing of her would be understandable. How many times have we been blown away by a R&B newcomer in recent years, only to end up disappointed because the album that followed didn’t live up to all that early “genre-rescuing” hype. Well get ready to become excited all over again because based on the sound of recent leaks making the blog rounds, Miss Sullivan is definitely looking to become the urban world’s new TRUTH!!
From it’s opening moments, the epic “Lions and Tigers” announces itself as a clear-cut classic. Atop some gorgeously plucked orchestration, Sullivan erupts like an emotion-filled volcano, relating her wariness of opening her heart to someone new.
When it comes to wildlife’s most vicious of creatures or having to perform in front of the Queen, Sullivan isn’t at all shook, but plant love in front of her and she instantly re-coils. “Am I the only who thinks it’s an impossible task?/ Why it don’t last?/ Is that too much to ask?/ Why do we love love, when love seems to hate us?” she powerfully belts away, the sour experiences of previous romances leaving her enormously terrified of ever going down that road again (“I can cross mountains/ Swim cross the seas/ But the most frightening thing is you and me”).
As the arrangement builds and builds to breathtakingly plush peaks, a break from her pessimism begins to peak through, the classic line of “It’s better to love than not to love at all” and the promise of new “sweet memories” pushing her into considering the welcoming of amour back into her life. But after that brief flirtation, she just as soon retracts to her original cowered position on the subject, the thought of leaving herself vulnerable to heartache once more seeming just too difficult a task to follow through on.
Like “Need U Bad” (but to the tenth power), Sullivan’s performance here is so raw, so internally exposing, that you’re moved to pause the song mid-way through just to give yourself a temporary break from all it’s emotional heft.
The next time you hear somebody say they don’t make R&B like they used to, put this on and show them that there’s still hope…and it’s name is Jazmine Sullivan.
DL: “Lions and Tigers” (YFH)
could you re up this link?
Beautiful song…. wish the link worked.
silly me. the yfh link worked perfectly
good lord, this is beautiful. i completely feel you on the needing to take a break in the middle just to catch my breath. it just takes you right there.