Aspiration information
Johnny Kemp, “Just Got Paid” (1988, US #10)
Yesterday afternoon I tuned in to the reliably old school Kiss FM and caught the apex of its new jack swing segment. The DJ billed the set as a celebration of “homegrown artists,” underscoring the extent to which that particular sound became synonymous with black New York in the early nineties. The culture of new jack swing, with its aura of sophistication, seemed to augur the sort of bustling buppie urban life that awaited middle-class youngsters like me. That was our vision of adulthood.
The triumph of hip-hop, among other things,1 changed all that. Donnie Simpson went out and Joe Clair came in, though that’s a crude way to put it. New jack swing was, I suppose, the last great iteration of a certain kind of black urbanity. Its visual aesthetics were rooted largely in mid-century jazz and R&B culture—baggy, bright-colored suits, wavy or processed hair, goatees, horn-rimmed glasses, etc. The music itself combined smooth vocal arrangements and sunny keyboard vamps with funk breaks or loud, drum machine beats. Today it sounds surprisingly sprightly. In my mind, it also remains freighted with notions of what was or could have been, for the version of black city life to which new jack swing supposedly formed a sonic backdrop disappeared, by all accounts, a long time ago. The ideal, needless to say, lives on for some.
A few years ago I ran into Johnny Kemp at a house party in Hamilton Heights. I learned that he still performs in clubs and lounges uptown. New York is funny that way.
1. Crack cocaine, mostly.