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The Rahsaan Patterson Collection

Twenty tracks from a singer who was a child television star, then spent thirty years making some of the most adventurous R&B anyone has released.

Rahsaan Patterson

This Sade cover was never released which I always found strange as he does an incredible job with it:

Rahsaan Patterson

Most people who know Rahsaan Patterson's face know it from Kids Incorporated, the eighties children's television series that also launched Fergie and Martika. Very few child performers survive that start with their artistic ambition intact. Patterson is the exception.

From his 1997 debut onwards he has made records that sit awkwardly against commercial R&B in the best way: harmonically restless, heavily influenced by seventies Stevie Wonder and by rock, with a countertenor that goes somewhere most male soul singers never attempt.

He has also been openly himself in an industry that made that expensive, and the cost is visible in the size of his audience relative to his talent.

What to listen for

"Spend the Night" is the one that got radio play, and it is deceptively complex — listen to what the chords are doing under a melody that sounds perfectly relaxed.

"Stop by" aside, "So Right" is the purest pop moment, and "Don't You Know That" is the deep-catalogue favourite among people who follow him closely.

"Sent From Heaven" is the ballad that shows the top of the range without ever sounding like a demonstration.

"Cloud 9" fans should go to "Burnin'" and "No Danger", the two tracks where the funk is most explicit and the band sounds most live.

"I Try" re-imagined and "I Only Have Eyes for You" are the interpretations, and the latter is a genuinely strange reading of a standard.

"Crazy (Baby)" and "Way of the World" are where the late records land, and "Fly High" with Brian Culbertson is the smooth-jazz guest spot done properly.

Go deeper

Love in Stereo (1999) and After Hours (2004) are the two to own. Bleuphoria (2011) is the most experimental.

He is part of a specific lineage — singers who came out of R&B but were listening to Prince, Todd Rundgren and Stevie Wonder as much as to soul. Van Hunt, Bilal and Muhsinah belong in the same conversation, and all four are best appreciated as album artists rather than through singles.

Listening note: follow the chords rather than the melody. Patterson writes progressions that keep sidestepping the resolution you expect, and because the singing is so relaxed the harmonic restlessness slips past on first hearing. The second listen is where the records open up.

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