Love Behind the Melody

Raheem DeVaughn: a new star of R&B

Raheem DeVaughn, the son of the famous in the USA jazz cellist Abdul Wadud, was born in Newark, New Jersey. He grew up in Maryland. Actually, DeVaughn never thought of becoming a musician. He went to the High Point High School, graduated from it and entered the Coppin State University in Baltimore. However, citing the artist, soon he started skipping classes due to his love of music. He spent much time writing songs, paying a lot of attention to the lyrics. In a while, Raheem realized that most of all he wanted to become an artist and concentrated on his recently found profession. During several years, DeVaughn worked over his vocals, became a local Maryland celebrity and won a number of musical competitions. One of the prizes was a pretty sum of money and Raheem wisely decided to spend it on his career progress. Around the same time, the Jive Records that found Britney Spears got interested in him. Therefore, in 2002, Raheem DeVaughn started working over his debut disc. The Love Experience album saw light in 2005, reaching less attention than it deserved - as DeVaughn is extremely gifted. This year he released his sophomore attempt Love Behind The Melody, which should be highly estimated by all contemporary music listeners.

The entire Love Behind The Melody is dedicated to women and love

The first single from the album Love Behind The Melody was the brilliant song Woman, which can be called without any exaggeration one of the most delicate and perfect dedications to the fair sex since the times of Roy Orbison's Oh, Pretty Woman. Actually, the entire disc Love Behind The Melody, as it is obvious from the title, is dedicated to women and love, which are the most important notions in the life of practically every man. Such passionate and igniting tracks as Mo Better, Energy, featuring Big Boi from Outkast, and Marathon, featuring Floetry, tell about the happy moments of love - sex, communication to the close person, anticipation of new meetings. A wonderful composition Woman I Desire got its amazing rhythm and spine due to the rap monologue read by Malik Yusef. A cute and light melody Butterflies puts a pleasant diversity into the Love Behind The Melody with the help of its comparatively strict arrangement and sweet tune. However, Raheem has his reasons to compare love to a drug in the serenade Love Drug, as relations have a darker side. DeVaughn sings about it with piercing bitterness on the tracks She's Not You, Try Again and Empty. The closer Four Letter Word became the dramatic and powerful climax of the Love Behind The Melody.

One of the loudest releases of 2008

All the seventeen tracks of Love Behind The Melody are devoted to love. In spite of the irony in the melody Four Letter Word, the work shows the artist as the incorrigible romantic, who tells about his personal relations experience with the help of musical nuances and emotional vocals. Nevertheless, all that DeVaughn sings about is sure to be familiar to anyone who has ever felt some affection to another person or is just looking for a beloved. Raheems' second disc was worked out with the help of mighty Scott Storch, who collaborated with Justin Timberlake over his debut Justified. The Love Behind The Melody album promises to become one of the loudest releases of 2008 and makes a good item to compete for the following full-lengths. If all the other new albums are at least equal in quality to Love Behind The Melody by Raheem DeVaughn, the R&B and neo-soul fans are sure to have fun all over the year. Thanks to the use of the piano and other classical jazz instruments the Love Behind The Melody is sure to satisfy the ear of those listeners, who are tired of the synthesized sound. It should be added that this work was released just after the single Woman was nominated for Grammy 2008 in the category Best Male R&B Vocal Performace.