Music

In the most memorable performance of his career, K-Ci Hailey is shirtless, wearing a backward baseball cap, two earrings in each ear and blue boxer shorts mushrooming out over low-slung black jeans. At times, he struts around with a cane. The pendant dangling from the gold chain around his neck bears the logo of his group, Jodeci.It’s early 1993, and Jodeci is performing “Lately” as part of an “MTV Unplugged” special devoted to Uptown Records. Uptown — founded by Andre Harrell, who died last week — was the first label granted an “Unplugged” special of its own, and the lineup was stacked: the budding soul siren Mary J. Blige, fresh off her debut album, “What’s the 411?”; the buoyant hip-hop group Heavy D & the Boyz; the irrepressibly smooth rapper Father MC; the irrepressibly smooth singer Christopher Williams.But they all felt like humble opening acts for the robust, audacious R&B foursome Jodeci, at that point still floating on the success of its sterling 1991 debut album, “Forever My Lady.” The “Unplugged” franchise was predicated on the erasure of artifice, a way to see superstars without the pylons that hold them up and the glaze that makes them pretty. There wasn’t much of that to start with when it came to the prodigiously talented Jodeci, a group brimming with raw sexual gusto and pinpoint vocal harmonies kiln-fired in North Carolina churches.This head-rush-intense recording of “Lately” is, on some days, my absolute favorite piece of music, a pinnacle achievement. Vocal brilliance, mature restraint, vigorous performance, supreme confidence — it would be a master class if anyone were able to study it, learn from it and replicate it. Not likely.Jodeci was made up of two sets of brothers — K-Ci and JoJo (Cedric and Joel Hailey), and DeVanté Swing and Mr. Dalvin (Donald and Dalvin DeGrate) — though at times it could feel like a one-man band, with K-Ci as the tempestuous alpha. Throughout the group’s performance (which also included the hits “Come & Talk to Me,” “Forever My Lady” and “Stay”), JoJo, Dalvin and DeVanté are painting luscious watercolor scenes. Wearing forest-green leather motorcycle vests, black pants and black boots, they’re vibrant, delicate, elegantly contoured.K-Ci, meanwhile, slinks among them doing Jackson Pollock, Isiah Thomas, Wile E. Coyote. A vocal dynamo at the peak of his power — and sometimes beyond it — he’s notionally on the same plane of existence as everyone else, but really dipping in and out of different dimensions, an alien and a conqueror.The calmest he gets is during “Lately,” performed by just him and his brother. They begin on stools, contemplative, maybe a little drained. JoJo, the placater in the family, with a pager clipped into his right jeans pocket, introduces the song almost sheepishly. K-Ci revs into gear with some vamps, but JoJo takes the early reins with sugar-sweet coos. He gets four lines in like this — technically precise, tender, heavy with the sense of regret just around the corner.Then he passes the baton: “K-Ci, sing it.” The piano offers up a little march-like flourish, then cedes the floor.There aren’t many human parallels to the way K-Ci enters the song here: a bugle blaring the Reveille, the pink sun nudging over the horizon. He is skinny but not slight, all sinew and boxed-up energy, a spring waiting for the bounce. He leans into the microphone just a bit, his head vibrating under the sheer intensity of his singing.They go back and forth every few lines — K-Ci detonating bombs, JoJo spreading rose petals. The song is about the body-shaking certainty you are being misled by the person you love. It’s a plea, but it’s sung proudly, as if learning you have been undermined is a kind of triumph.K-Ci is perhaps a little peppier, a little more rascally, than the song demands, but his vim turns out to be an asset. He’s almost jaunty when singing, “When I ask you all the thoughts you’re keeping/You just said …” Then the nitrous oxide kicks in, and K-Ci goes from bystander to victim, growling “Noooooothing’s chaaaanged!” like a human defibrillator.JoJo is here to catch him, again — throughout the song, K-Ci is aggrieved, JoJo reluctant but proud. There’s a stretch around four minutes in where they echo each other word for word, ache translated into entreaty, a choose-your-own-heartbreak explosion. It is hard not to feel drenched or depleted at the end of watching it — it’s like standing amid a thunderstorm with no cover. The wetness is a thrill.The “Unplugged” performance of “Lately” became iconic — parodied on “In Living Color,” integrated into a hilarious episode of “Martin.” Jodeci rerecorded it for a studio version that’s far more polite, leaching out the bruised ardor of the “Unplugged” performance. They’ve performed it umpteen times since, sometimes dismantling it — a 2002 rendition at a BET tribute to Stevie Wonder had some particularly tumultuous moments.Released as the promotional single for the “Uptown MTV Unplugged” album, “Lately” went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart, and No. 4 on the Hot 100, making it Jodeci’s biggest pop hit. The song is, of course, not a Jodeci original — it was a minor hit for Wonder in 1981. In Wonder’s hands, it was relatively tame, a little lagging and un-nimble; he doesn’t really get busy until the song’s loose fourth and final minute.That’s where K-Ci and JoJo likely took their cues from, adding in the sober ecstasy of gospel. Outsinging Wonder is, ordinarily, a fool’s fantasy. K-Ci said recently that Harrell had asked Jodeci to sing “Lately” only a day or so before the special was recorded, buying the CD and playing the music for them. But the Hailey brothers, quite frankly, lovingly annihilated Wonder’s original. There is no other version of the song that matters. And sometimes, there is no other song that matters at all. More

Damien Chazelle, who directed the first two episodes of “The Eddy,” a new Netflix series about jazz, wanted to capture the genre’s kinetic energy by having the cast improvise. Which is how Amandla Stenberg found herself riffing, both verbally and musically, in front of the camera.“It definitely was not a piece of cake, but it was a really fantastic challenge,” said Stenberg, 21, who plays Julie, the impetuous daughter of an American pianist (André Holland) who pours his soul into his Parisian club. “We were told to just lean into our impulses and find the things that felt the most truthful to us, which was sometimes really chaotic but also birthed some cool moments.”Lately, Stenberg’s moments have been limited to whatever entertainment she can conjure up while sheltering in Los Angeles. In a phone call, she chatted about the 10 best things — some longtime favorites, others fresh discoveries. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “Zami” by Audre LordeI love Audre Lorde and who she is as a literary figure. I feel like so many of my experiences are reflected in her work, and I connect spiritually. There’s this amazing prologue in “Zami: A New Spelling of My Name” that kind of changed my life, where she speaks about almost being gender nonconforming or what it feels like to be nonbinary or to house multiple gender identities inside of you. She talks about wanting to be simultaneously a man and a woman, and how she holds these valleys and mountains in her body the way the Earth does. And as I experience more in the world as a queer person, and more with love and romance and life, I find that her words resonate more and more.2. “Gang” by Clayton VomeroThis short film follows three ballroom dancers through the streets of New York. It cuts between their quiet moments and their moments of friendship and love. And then it’ll cut to them on the subway, just popping off these incredible vogueing dance moves. The vogue scene is something that is fascinating to me. My best friend is a dancer, and she introduced me to the concept and gave me a couple of very elementary moves that I can whip out at a function here and there.3. @idealblackfemaleMandy Harris Williams is an amazing thinker and a really close friend. But I knew her ideas before I knew her. She’s a phenomenal presence. She sets an expectation for those around her to engage in active equity. She encourages us to be constantly evaluating those filters through which we move in the world, particularly when it comes to proximity to whiteness and race. She’s a leader, she’s a teacher, she’s an artist. I think Mandy is going to save the world.4. Molinere Bay Underwater Sculpture ParkIt’s an underwater sculpture garden created off the coast of Grenada by this artist named Jason deCaires Taylor. The one that’s most well-known is the circle of children holding hands. When you see images of it, it’s pretty startling. The reference that one thinks of immediately is the Middle Passage. But the artist has said that he wanted to create that sculpture because of the collective strength of the figures as they form a circle to resist the water. My mom tells this story that in the moment that I was being born, she had this image in her head of a circle of women holding bundles and singing “Bringing in the Sheaves.” That’s the image that I associate with coming into the world.5. “Violin Phase” by Steve ReichI had this phenomenal pre-calc teacher in high school, and he played this video because he was talking about the connection between mathematics and music. The dancer’s name is Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. She’s wearing this beautiful white dress and she’s twirling around in a circle and creating patterns with her feet and it’s such a slow reveal. Finally you see that she’s created almost this mandala in the sand. You can hear her breathe as she is dancing.6. Tierra WhackTierra Whack is one of my favorite rappers. She’s become so distinctive for her cadence and the playfulness of the way she raps. But it’s because of that silliness that she’s able to introduce these ideas that are really loaded and heavy and beautiful. There’s this video of her when she’s 15 and rapping on this channel called We Run the Streets, and she’s freestyling like nobody’s business. Her sense of self is already so defined. I just can’t get over that.7. Ice Water KanekalonI usually get my hair braided at a salon or by a hair artist. But now that we’re in quarantine, I’ve had to learn how to do it myself, which has been pretty exhilarating. I’ve given myself at least three braiding styles. I gave my best friend, who I’ve been quarantining with, a full head of hair. A Kanekalon color that I discovered recently is ice water, like a lilac-periwinkle. I just really love it. There’s something so special about creating a hairstyle for your homegirl and then seeing the way that she walks around the house different, just like the little sway in her hip.8. Maya Angelou with Bill MoyersThis is the interview where Maya Angelou says that it’s as if there’s a steel rod running right through black women. Maya is such a force of calm strength. She’s like the ocean. Moyers was kind of poking and prodding her, and she was just resolute and radiating throughout the whole thing. She talks about how the black woman is integral to the family unit — how they have raised black families but been at the center of white family units as well. She also talks about what it feels like to belong everywhere and nowhere, and the price that she has had to pay in order to achieve that sort of freedom.9. “Du Gamla” by Hakan HellstromA friend played it for me one night when I was feeling sad, and it transformed all the feelings I was having. The song is a spiritual originally performed by Laura Rivers called “That’s All Right.” Then this Swedish artist had an orchestra score it along with her voice. I listen to it every time that I have anxiety or I’m feeling unsure of the future, and it makes me feel like everything’s going to be all right.10. My Grandfather’s ViolinI started playing violin when I was in the third grade. But by the sixth grade I was so tired of the traditional Suzuki method, and I hated going to competitions and seeing kids crying in the corner. This took all the fun out of it and so I quit. A couple of years later my dad rediscovered my grandfather’s violin. I remembered him telling me when I was younger that one day I would grow into it, and he asked me if I wanted it. And that was the thing that propelled me back into playing. I don’t think it’s actually a very good violin. I don’t think my grandfather was a fantastic violinist from what I’ve heard. But it’s so important to me, and hopefully I’ll keep it and cherish it and play it for others. More