Goapele’s talents shine most extraordinarily on the album’s ballads and mid-temp grooves. Though she earned a following initially for politically tinged tracks like “Childhood Drama”, “It Takes More” and the brilliant “Red, White and Blues” (“Red, white and Blues / If you don’t claim them they’ll blame you”), much of Even Closer is romantic fare.
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Possessing a flat, nasal tone that is reminiscent at times of Faith Evans, Goapele co-wrote every one of the songs on Even Closer. Released in November, Even Closer caught the attention of some industry folks as the record managed to outsell 50 Cent’s record breaking debut Get Rich or Die Tryin’ in the Bay Area.
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It was through her relationship with Hieroglyphics (who she collaborates with on “Ease Your Mind”) that Goapele was able to negotiate a deal with Red/Sony to distribute the Even Closer, which includes five additional tracks. Goapele is just the latest in a long line of San Francisco/Oakland Bay Area figures who pushed against the margins dating back to Sly Stone and the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s and represented most recently in folk like Davey D, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Michael Franti and the legendary hip-hop collective known as Hieroglyphics.Įven Closer started-out as a nine-song EP ( Closer) that the artist and her family partners distributed themselves, eventually selling 5,000 copies of the disc out of the proverbial car trunk. ( SF Weekly, 20 November 2002) Goapele’s spirit is indicative of a woman, who at the age of 10 formed a pre-teen support group for the Bay Area Black Woman Health Project, was the child of a activist-minded bi-racial couple, and was born and bred in a region of the country known for its political and cultural mavericks. Bay area chanteuse Goapele is on par with many of her neo-soul peers in terms of style and talent, but what sets her full-length debut Even Closer apart from the rest, is the activist spirit that informs both her music and her decision to record on her family owned label Skyblaze.Īccording to Goapele Mohlabane (she is the daughter of exiled South African activist Douglas Mohlabane), the decision to go the indie route was the result of wanting to “get the music out the way I see fit, without having to compromise my values, my image or any of my lyrics”. Acts like The Jazzyfatnastees (who broke with MCA to record their second disc with the indie Cool Hunter), Ledisi, Kindred the Family Soul, N’Dambi and Conya Doss have more than held their own, both commercially and artistically, in comparison to their major label peers like Floetry, Bilal, and Musiq and Vivian Green.
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Some of the real gems of the so-called neo-soul era, have been those artists who’ve recorded projects for independent labels well below the radar of the tastemakers at MTV or Entertainment Weekly.