After an 18-year break from music, during which she divorced producer Terry Lewis, raised their daughter Ashley, and delved into interior design and real estate, Karyn White has released a new studio album, Carpe Diem.
The music industry has changed a lot during White’s absence — goodbye, record stores, hello, iTunes — and the R&B genre is nearly unrecognizable from when she left it in the late ’80s. Any casual check of the aforementioned iTunes on any given week reveals a dearth of new releases. On Carpe Diem, White sings as if no time has passed at all. Such soulful sounds may now be termed “throwback,” but her new album skillfully illuminates what present-day R&B has been missing.
“Unbreakable,” the album’s second single (female message song, “Sista Sista,” came first), finds White surveying the wreckage of a relationship and summoning the strength to begin again. It’s a theme often visited in music, but one that White effortlessly delivers with an investment that separates true singers from studio talents. “Unbreakable” also features this great, if grammatically questionable lyric: “Me minus you, it equals strong.”
White has done a few interviews to promote Carpe Diem, and I was a little disappointed to read that she has some regrets regarding her chart-topping “Romantic” days:
“I hired different management for [1991’s] Ritual of Love [who] saw me more as a black Madonna,” she told Soul Train. So we saw my fan base sort of shift a little, because I had a No. 1 pop record [in 1991 with “Romantic”] — not that I left my original fan base, but I think I went a little too extreme over the top with the pop, because that’s how the management saw me.”
No surprise, then, that Carpe Diem steers clear of any “Romantic”-like sequels. While there’s also nothing approaching “The Way You Love Me” and “Secret Rendezvous” (the New Jack Swing renaissance will have to wait), White hasn’t completely left beats behind, either. Smooth midtempo tracks like “Dance Floor” and “This Hot,” which both recall Off The Wall-era Michael Jackson, fill the bill nicely.
Purchase Karyn White – “Unbreakable” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.
