Seven years ago Weekly Music Commentary featured one of my favorite singer/songwriters Jazmine Sullivan. She had taken a break from music three years prior and was coming back with new music. Several months after that post, Jazmine Sullivan delivered her third studio album Reality Show. The album sold 30,000 copies in its first week. Slant Magazine commented, “Despite what the rasp in her voice might suggest, Sullivan clearly sees herself as something other than R&B’s next great queen of pain. Her central themes—love and self-image—don’t stray far from genre convention, but her musical versatility and keenly observed characters make her one of the most captivating artists in R&B today.” Reality Show earned Sullivan three Grammy Award nominations for Best R&B Album and Best Traditional R&B Performance.
What came next was not exactly another hiatus, but some high profile performances and contributions to a few projects. In 2016, Sullivan was featured in the visual album “Endless” by Frank Ocean. Sullivan lent her vocals to four songs from the album: “Alabama”, “Wither”, “Hublots”, and “Rushes”. Sullivan was the lead writer for these four songs on Mary J. Blige’s album Strength of a Woman, and sang backup vocals on the first three of them: “Thick of It”, “Set Me Free”, “Glow Up”, and “Thank You.” Also in 2016 she performed the national anthem at the first game of the 2016 NHL Stadium Series at TCF Bank Stadium featuring the Chicago Blackhawks and Minnesota Wild. In 2019, Sullivan was featured on Pentatonix’s Christmas collection The Best of Pentatonix Christmas on the group’s cover of “Joyful, Joyful”.
On August 27, 2020, Sullivan announced the release of a new song titled “Lost One”, marking her return to music. Within hours of the announcement, the phrase “New Jazmine” trended on Twitter across the United States. The song was released the next day along with the confirmation of her extended play (EP), Heaux Tales. The EP was released on January 8, 2021, and reached number one on the R&B Albums chart, also earning Sullivan her career best peak on the Billboard 200.
Many of you might be wondering what is so special about Jazmine Sullivan releasing an EP. Especially one that is now six months old. Well, Heaux Tales is special because of what it represents. Yes, the songs written by Sullivan are more of her life experiences. They offer insight into her life and struggles far more than an interview. Also, the EP appears to be the bridge to her fourth studio album. “Tragic”, the lead single from her upcoming album, was released on June 24, 2021.
Leading up to Heaux Tales were a series of devastating events that presented a tough obstacle for Jazmine Sullivan. Toward the end of 2019, Jazmine Sullivan got the terrible news that her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. A few months after that shock, the pandemic shut down live music entirely. On top of that Sullivan was dealing with an abusive relationship that ended not long before these tragic circumstances. Record executives recommended that she record new music to get ahead of the tragic issues. This provided an outlet for Jazmine Sullivan to express her emotions through her music. “In my music, I feel like I can talk about things that I wouldn’t normally have talked about,” she says, “and just be proud of who I am, and own who I am.”
I think it is easy for all of us to understand the problems Jazmine Sullivan has faced. What she has, and continues to experience is all part of the human life. Happiness and tragedy are all part of our overall existence. As time led me to this place in my own life, I’ve grown to understand that we all experience moments that will define us, and perhaps fuel artistic endeavors. This explains why there have been so many love songs historically. Love stories can be told regarding the joy or pain any individual feels surrounding those moments. Artists have expressed love through their own experience, or the experiences of others. Nevertheless, Jazmine Sullivan has always provided us with an array of her human feelings through songs. Heaux Tales is really just more of that story.
In a recent Rolling Stone article, Heaux Tales was explained quite well. “The project is organized around a theme of romantic realism, expressed through spoken-word testimonials from the women in Sullivan’s life (including family members and fellow artist Ari Lennox) and bluntly honest songs about relationships and their downsides.” Because the EP tells more than just the story of Jazmine Sullivan, we are given a full, divergent narrative. On the song “The Other Side,” Sullivan pleads, “I just wanna be taken care of/’Cause I worked enough, commas over love/I just wanna lay back, spend my baby’s money in his Maybach/I deserve that life.” “It was refreshing to write that story,” Sullivan says. “It’s very different from who I am, and my perspective. I feel like people were able to look at what they would consider a gold digger through a different lens after that.”
As I mentioned earlier, Jazmine Sullivan is not just resting after the creation of Heaux Tales. No, she is still writing and creating more music that we are starting to hear now. The pandemic has really stifled some artists from creative endeavors. However, there are quite a few who have forged ahead and continued to create under difficult conditions. Sullivan is one of them. That should make fans very happy.
Was Jazmine Sullivan’s hiatus a good thing? Well, that depends on how you view it. Sometimes an artist might use time away from the business of music as a chance to recharge. A chance to possibly “find” the happiness they first found in creating music. In January 2011, Sullivan announced via Twitter that she was indefinitely leaving the music industry, stating, “I promised myself when it wasn’t fun anymore I wouldn’t do it. And, here I am. I’m not saying I won’t ever sing again in my life because I don’t believe that. But in this moment… right now… [I] got some things to figure out”. Ten years later, it appears Sullivan has figured out things.
Jazmine Sullivan music has always been uncompromisingly transparent, with a flair for telling a story with very vivid words. It seems that will continue to be a hallmark of her work. “When I’m making music and I’m in a studio, it really feels so personal,” she says. “I’m just literally telling my story, and it’s for me. I know people are going to hear it, but it’s just me getting out these thoughts and these feelings that are inside of me.”