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Jaheim VibeZ

Fifty-one tracks from a New Jersey singer with a Teddy Pendergrass voice and a street lyricist's vocabulary. Jaheim made grown-folks R&B out of the projects.

The last of the traditional male R&B stars

Jaheim Hoagland is from New Brunswick, New Jersey, and won Showtime at the Apollo three times as a teenager. His grandfather, Victor Hoagland, sang with the doo-wop group The Drifters, and that lineage is audible: Jaheim's voice is a full, gospel-weighted baritone in a direct line from Teddy Pendergrass and Luther Vandross.

What made him distinctive was the combination. Signed to Divine Mill by Kay Gee of Naughty By Nature, he sang like a 1970s soul man over hip-hop-informed production, and wrote about working-class life with a specificity that most R&B avoided. His records are about rent, family obligation, fidelity under pressure, and the actual texture of a relationship rather than its romance.

He was one of the last male R&B singers to sustain a genuine chart career in that lane, which is why fifty-one tracks is not excessive.

What to listen for

"Put That Woman First" is the essential and one of the best male vocal performances of the 2000s — a song about failing someone and knowing it.

"Just in Case" and "Could It Be"-era material are the singles that established him, and "Diamond in Da Ruff" is the one where the writing is sharpest.

"Ain't Leavin Without You" and "Age Ain't a Factor" are the later hits, and "Have You Ever" is the ballad his audience holds closest.

"Waitin' on You" with Miss Jones is the duet, and "Ready, Willing & Able" and "Heaven in My Eyes" are the deeper album cuts.

The frankly-titled tracks — and there are several — are part of the picture rather than an embarrassment. Jaheim's records are unguarded in a way that was normal for his lane and is now largely gone from mainstream R&B.

Go deeper

Ghetto Love (2001) and Still Ghetto (2002) are the two albums, and both went platinum. Ghetto Classics (2006) went to number one.

For the tradition: Teddy Pendergrass above all — Life Is a Song Worth Singing is the record Jaheim is answering. Then Luther Vandross, Gerald Levert and Freddie Jackson.

And Kay Gee's Divine Mill roster is worth exploring — the same producer developed Next and Zhané.

A last note on what he represents. Jaheim arrived at the tail end of the era when a male R&B singer could sell platinum on the strength of a voice and a set of ballads, and he is arguably the last one to manage it repeatedly. What replaced that model — rap features, streaming playlists, singers as guests on other people's records — has produced plenty of good music but very few careers shaped like his. Fifty-one tracks is a reminder of how much material that older model could sustain.

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