About
Jazmine Sullivan has authored the kind of songbook that could form the basis of a jukebox musical. Given the versatility the R&B artist has displayed as a gospel-reared and stage-trained powerhouse vocalist, the production would require a large and exceptionally talented ensemble to do right by the source material. Stymied before she was able to release an album recorded in her mid-teens, the Philadelphia native broke through in her late teens as a songwriter with “Say I” (2006), a Top 40 hit for Christina Milian. Shortly after that, she launched her career as a headliner with the similarly successful “Need U Bad,” the first single off Fearless (2008), a Top Ten album that garnered seven Grammy nominations, including Best R&B Album and Best New Artist. Although Sullivan has released only two full-lengths since then, namely Love Me Back (2010) and Reality Show (2015), they have also been met with widespread acclaim, high chart placement, and additional Grammy nominations. All along, Sullivan has cultivated a substantial secondary discography as a songwriter and featured vocalist, underscored with a number one R&B/hip-hop hit co-written for Monica (“Everything to Me”) and a Grammy-nominated duet with PJ Morton (“Built for Love”). Despite being an outlier — she’s never truly adhered to contemporary trends or squarely traditional R&B — Sullivan has always been relevant, up to and including the Grammy-nominated Heaux Tales (2021), her first release of the 2020s.
Source: Tidal
