Al B Sure Private Times and the Whole 9 Review

Al B., during his heyday.

Albert Joseph Brown Iii (born June 4, 1968, Mount Vernon, New York), best known under his phase name Al B. Certain! is a three-time Grammy-nominated American R&B recording artist, record producer and a noted pioneer of the New Jack Swing fusion genre.

Prior to his music career, Sure! was known locally equally the star football quarterback at Mount Vernon High School. His talents earned him an athletic scholarship to the University of Iowa, but he rejected it to pursue music full time. In 1987, he was personally selected by legendary music producer Quincy Jones every bit the inaugural winner of Sony's Innovator Talent Search. Warner Bros. Vice President of black music Benny Medina offered Sure! a recording contract to record his debut. Certain!, despite initially starting as a rapper, spent six months teaching himself how to sing and compose melodies with his cousin and producer, Kyle Westward.

His first appearance on an anthology was Heavy D'southward Livin' Large, providing singing vocals on "Dedicated" and "Don't You Know", cheers to being childhood friends with anthology producer DJ Eddie F. This led to him getting introduced to Uptown Records founder and CEO Andre Harrell, who brought Certain! into Uptown as an artist.

Sure!'s debut anthology, In Effect Manner, was released past Uptown, with Warner Bros. Records providing distribution. The album became a huge success, topping the R&B/Hip Hop charts and hitting number twenty on the Billboard Hot 200, selling two million copies. The anthology received multiple honor nominations and spawned multiple R&B hits, including "Nite N 24-hour interval", Sure!'southward only single to reach the pinnacle 40 of Billboard's pop charts. During this fourth dimension, Certain! also appeared on the R&B smash "The Surreptitious Garden (Sweet Seduction Suite)" from Quincy Jones' Back On The Block equally a part of a quartet that as well featured Barry White, El DeBarge and James Ingram.

But as fast as he rose to fame, it chop-chop started to fade out by the early nineties. His 1990 sophomore follow upwardly Individual Times... And The Whole nine! only went Golden, and information technology's lead single "Missunderstanding", just barely missed the Top 40, while 1992'due south Sexy Versus bombed. Later on Sexy Versus, he mostly stayed behind the scenes, writing tracks for multi-platinum R&B artists such equally Faith Evans, Jodeci, Usher, Case, Tevin Campbell and many others, while providing the occasional song to various movie and TV soundtracks. In 2009, Sure! returned to music and released his fourth anthology Honey, I'm Habitation on Hidden Beach Recordings.

Sure! currently hosts "The Secret Garden" on iHeart Radio.

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Albums:

• In Effect Mode (1988)*
• Private Times... And The Whole 9! (1990)*
• Sexy Versus (1992)**
• Dear, I'm Home (2009)

Albums with a single asterisk were released on Uptown Records with distribution from Warner Bros. Records. Sexy Versus was released exclusively on Warner Bros. Records.

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Songs of note:

• "Nite And Day"
• "Off On Your Own Girl"
• "Rescue Me"
• "Killing Me Softly"
• "If I'm Not Your Lover"
• "The Secret Garden (Sweet Seduction Suite)" (With Quincy Jones, Barry White, El DeBarge & James Ingram)
• "Missunderstanding"
• "No Matter What Yous Do" (With Diana Ross)
• "Had Enuf?"
• "Right Now"
• "Natalie"
• "I Don't Wanna Cry"
• "Black Tie White Noise"
• "I'm Still In Dearest With You"
• "I Honey It (Papi Yes Aye Aye)"

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Tropes"

• Big Ol' Unibrow: His trademark look to this very solar day.
• Gimmicky R&B
• Embrace Version: Several:
  • "Killing Me Softly" (Roberta Flack)
  • "Hotel California" (Eagles)
  • "I'm Still In Dearest With You" (Al Green)
  • "Lady In My Life" (Michael Jackson)
• Crossover: "No Matter What You Do", a duet with Diana Ross. Ross would later include it on the international version of her 1991 album The Force Behind The Ability.
  • Slick Rick appeared on the extended remix of "If I'thou Not Your Lover". He would later cameo on "Turn U Out" iii years afterward Sexy Versus.
  • "The Secret Garden (Sugariness Seduction Suite)" was a mega crossover with R&B stars from several generations, such every bit Barry White, El DeBarge and James Ingram.
  • "Black Tie White Noise", a collaboration with David Bowie.
• Genre Shift: Enforced by Al B. himself. When he decided to switch from rapping to singing, he trained himself for 6 months straight.
• Golden Digger: "Had Enuf?" and "Missunderstanding" affect this topic.
• The Mentor: To R&B group Jodeci.
• New Jack Swing: One of the early on architects, alongside his cousin Kyle West, Flyte Tyme, Eddie F and Teddy Riley.
• Punny Proper name: Al B. Sure! is a play on "I'll be sure".
• Record Producer: His cousin Kyle Due west was always his principal producer, and Sure! himself co-produced several songs with West, including his own.
• Singing Voice Racket: Al has a sweet, high-register falsetto that can rival Prince's, just his normal speaking voice is rather deep and somewhat guttural.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The bailiwick of "Off On Your Own (Girl)" was based on a girl Al B. tried to court in high school, just to find out she was a lesbian. ^note Past seeing her kissing some other girl on his way to class no less! The song omits the lesbianism part, only keeps true to how Al was feeling at the fourth dimension.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: On various songs:
  • Slick Rick appears on the remix of "If I'1000 Not Your Lover".
  • Monie Love appears on a remix of "Missunderstanding".
  • Chubb Rock appears on "Ooh 4 Yous, Girl", "Channel J" and it's remix "Meet The Lady".
  • Rakim appears on "Kicking In The Head"
  • Grand Puba appears on "Ooh 4 You, Girl".

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/AlBSure

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