Dwele

Dwele first made his name as a guest vocalist on Slum Village’s “Tainted,” parlaying that into a solo career that fuses contemporary R&B styles with the comfortably cool croonings of decades past. His last two efforts, Some Kinda… and Sketches Of A Man, were neo-soul collections that skewed decidedly old in terms of presentation. Last year’s W.ants W.orld W.omen didn’t stray far from from his pattern of late-night-with-a-bottle-of-wine smooth tunes, but it does add a twist: The trisected album focuses on worldly desires, politics, and romantic entanglements. It also reunites him with Slum Village on hard-times anthem “How I Deal.” It’s that kind of collaboration that suits Dwele, who also guested on the Kanye West mega-single “Power.” 

Updated 11/30/2011