Jazmine Sullivan

I rarely get a chance to listen to secular radio. I usually ride with my mom to and from school--the sum of my radio exposure--and the dial is typically set to the gospel radio station.

So one day, I was chilling in the car while she was out shopping, and I switched to V103, and I heard this REALLY authentic reggae arrangement...and this really thick, gutter Jamaican patois that began "hey biaby, a whe yuh a deal wid?" Then I heard Missy Eliot yell, followed by this soulful voice.



The harmonies blew my mind; not really because they were particularly out of the box--they were actually pretty standard for a reggae jam, but they were so clean, and maybe it was her voice over it, but I just felt it. I felt the soul.

Of course, I wish the transition between the end of the verse and the beginning of the chorus was a little more precise...sounds like they just put two half-beats together rather than continuing it. Granted, that complaint only comes from me because I'm a musician and those 2 seconds are important to me. But a live performance of this song would be absolutely sick in every sense of the word.

The video is pretty nice too. Check her out.