60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Sade — “By Your Side”

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

This week’s episode is all about comfort. It’s about being remembered and what better person to commemorate that feeling with than the person whose music doesn’t seem to age- Sade. Sade came out with “By Your Side” after disappearing with no explanation for 8 years because she felt that was best for her. That quiet confidence lends itself to making some of the, in Rob’s words, horniest music imaginable, and the world is better for it. Finally, he is joined by Danyel Smith who explains how Sade laid the groundwork for artists like Rihanna to be the ultimate cool girl and how younger generations are still discovering Sade. (00:00) Intro: Let’s remember some guys (28:19) This week’s song: “By Your Side” by Sade (31:46) Pride, “Smooth Operator,” and ‘Diamond Life’ (42:50) The legacy of Quiet Storm (49:25) Sade’s public silences and ever-growing myth (58:01) “By Your Side” and Sade’s comforting presence (01:07:19) Interview with Danyel Smith (01:42:50) Outro Host: Rob Harvilla Producers: Olivia Crerie, Julianna Ress, Chris Sutton, and Justin Sayles Guest: Danyel Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. Hello, friends. A quick note to say that 60 songs is now available on YouTube.

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So watch us on YouTube, check us out on TikTok and Instagram. I'm on Blue Sky and Twitter still under the name Harvilla, H-A-R-V-I-L-L-A, but maybe stay out of it. I don't know. We'll put all the links for these in the episode description as well. Thanks for listening and or watching, and we'll see you on the Internet. This episode of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s is presented to you by Nintendo. Some things stick around for a reason. A great song, a favorite movie.

a game everyone wants another turn at. The Nintendo Switch 2 system fits right into that tradition. With two controllers included in games like Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bonanza, and EA Sports FC26, there's something for every age and every mood. Whether you're at home or on the go, it's easy to keep the good stuff in rotation. Learn more at nintendo.com slash Nintendo Switch 2.

Games and systems sold separately, games rated E to E10 plus. People often ask me, they say, Rob, what is your single greatest professional accomplishment? No one has ever asked me that. And what I always say is my greatest professional accomplishment, the highlight of my distinguished journalism career. My enduring legacy is that I was technically present for the birth of the Let's Remember Some Guys movement. Here we have Walk of Life, the infectiously buoyant top 10 single from the English guitar rock band Dyer Straits. From their Blockbuster 1985 album, Brothers in Arms. That's the big whoop, Dyer Straits album, the one with money or nothing on it.

Dern-da-da-da-da-da-da-durn-dur-d-d-d-d-d-dard. That one. Whereas Walk of Life is a brighter, poppier, circus keyboard-driven bubblegum jam from Dyer Straits with a wildly popular MTV music video that's mostly sports bloopers, right? NBA stars wiping out, NFL stars biffing, routine catches, baseball stars crashing. full speed into each other whilst chasing pop flies, etc. Endearingly childish whimsy. Boys playing games poorly. Fantastic music video. I turned seven years old in 1985 and my four favorite things on earth in no particular order were MTV, sports, video games, and bloopers.

Three out of four ain't bad. I just spent 20 minutes solid trying to figure out of out the names of the two NBA players in this one blooper in the Walk of Life video. It's a two-second clip, maybe. A guy on the Seattle Supersonics, he's got the ball, and he fakes a shot, and a guy on the San Antonio Spurs tries to block the shot, and he wildly leaps halfway across the court, full extension, and crashes out of bounds and off camera. John Sunfold, point guard for the Seattle Supersonics, he fakes the shot. Alvin Robertson, shooting guard for the San Antonio Spurs. He gets faked out of his shorts and jumps higher and farther than he's ever jumped

in his whole life. Shake it off, Alvin, good hustle. I am 85% sure about these names. There's me rewatching the Walk of Life video frame by frame to try and read the blurry name on the back of John Sundvold's jersey. There's me on basketball reference.com looking up everyone who ever wore number 21 for the Spurs, including later Tim Duncan wore 21. It's fascinating.

I spent 20 minutes on this activity. This is pointless. This is of the utmost importance. John Sunfold and Alvin Robertson. Remember those guys? That blooper isn't even all that amusing or remarkable within the context. of the Walk of Life video. There's a better blooper just a few seconds later

where two dudes, two fielders on the San Diego Padres. They collide super violently in the shallow outfield. Ouch. Geez. Yeah. See, that clip is much more striking and memorable. And I do wonder who. Fernando Gonzalez and Oscar Gamble.

That looked like it hurt. I hoped Fernando and Oscar are okay. That one, it was way easier to get their names because both their names are faintly visible on their jerseys. I'm pretty good at this. Remember those guys? There's just a song ain't only trouble and described.

My favorite part of the song Walk of Life is the backing vocals and the chorus right there. The A. There's another violent baseball player collision at that exact point in the video, but it's two guys on the Yankees, I think, and I don't

give a shit. I find that all music from the year 1985, rock, pop, soul, rap, whatever. Anything at all from 1985 has this gauzy, backlit, idyllic golden hour beer commercial glow to it, both in my ears and in my head, if that makes any sense. This is partly a matter of both technical pop music production style. In 1985, you got hella reverb, you got super 80s gated drums. a la in the air tonight by Phil Collins. You got gourmet cheeseball synthesizers.

Even Bruce Springsteen gets to sounding like a new wave guy. It's the 80s. It objectively, sonically sounds like the 80s, but it's also a matter of pure, uncut, overpowering nostalgia. The romanticized blurriness of youth, of childhood. Both musically and sentimentally, I can smell 1985 like a fart in a car. Is that from a movie?

That's from a movie. Is that a line from a movie from 1985? That'd be awesome. Pump up the volume. Christian Slater said that and pump up the volume. But that's 1990. That's too bad. Close though.

Yeah, my permanent inner seven-year-old has a permanent, innocent, joyful, visceral response to the A backing vocals on Walk of Life. And weirdly, I get the exact same nastier-old. nostalgic dopamine burst. If you just start naming 1985 baseball players in my presence, Julio Franco, Ryan Sandberg, Lou Whitaker, Tony Gwynn, Dale Murphy, Wade Boggs, Kent Rebecca, Kirby Puckett. Remember those guys? Everyone remembers those guys. Those are superstars. A true remember some guy's experience has to involve guys you might not. Remember, not totally obscure players, it's not an insult, but slightly less famous than Tony Gwynn. And yeah, the names of those superstar guys reverberate in my head to this day like tasty gated snare drums or even like heavily reverbed super 80s handclaps.

John Fogarty, Centerfield, 1985. I could smell the 1985. Even the first 12 seconds of the Centerfield video, you get a different vintage baseball card on screen with every echoing hand clap. Bsh, Bsh, Bhrerto Clemente, Al Kline, Carl Yistremski, Frank Robinson, Duke Snyder. Remember those guys? Of course you do. Those are older, but even more famous superstar guys. Centerfield is a bright, poppy, ebullient beer commercial of the song that makes me nostalgic. for 1985, but the song itself, or the video itself anyway, is about how John Fogarty is

nostalgic for 1955 or so. Centerfield is a 41-year-old song that makes me reminisce unabashedly about a guy who's unabashedly reminiscing about the Eisenhower administration. Whole lot of Yankees action in the Centerfield video. I still don't give a shit. Also, lots of vintage, classic Black and White. white baseball action in this video. And yeah, man, I'll tell you what I won't be doing is calculating how old that footage was

in 1985 versus how old the centerfield video is now. I will make no such calculations. Centerfield and the center field video especially. This song exemplifies the timeless universal phenomenon where remembering a famous hit pop song and remembering a famous or even not famous sports guy can light up the exact same pleasure center in your brain. They both open a portal to the idyllic, carefree, distant, unrecoverable past. The name Wade Boggs.

Superstar Third Baseman, Boston Red Sox, I don't give a shit about the Red Sox either. The sonorous, lilting quality of the name, Wade Boggs. And the gourmet cheeseball keyboard line, do do do do do do do do do they can both trigger an unexpected instantaneous joy both the name and the melody can provide a wistful sort of solace they can both bring you legitimate comfort they can both magically transport you back to the what do you call them the glory days Bruce Springsteen and the East Street band Glory Days 1984 see Bruce Springsteen

New Wave guy speaking of dopamine hit gourmet cheese ball circus keyboard lines do do do do do do do I forgot that in the Glory Days video Bruce spends part of the time just watching baseball on TV alone while drinking beer and looking vaguely

pensive and dissatisfied with the arc of his life. It's a powerful image. The boss himself bathed in a melancholy TV glow as he's just throwing back a few and perhaps remembering some guys. Oh, right. Yeah. So in 2015, I'm working for the sports blog Deadspin. I'm the culture editor at Deadspin.

I'm writing about music and movies and stuff for a sports blog. Sports and pop culture. on one website, unprecedented. And one day, Friday, May 15th, 2015, on that fateful day, one of my dear colleagues, the superstar blogger and editor Tom Lay, Tom writes a very short, goofy, throwaway deadspin post that unexpectedly starts a revolution. I didn't have anything to do with this. And I wasn't even physically in the office with him. I was just on staff, working remotely and on the internet when this occurred. This is my single greatest professional accomplishment, my vague proximity to this event. The headline is, let's remember some guys. And this post, in the time

honored manner of many mid-2010s sports blog posts, it's inspired by a tweet. That same day, the NFL podcast around the NFL has a tweet that just goes, Colts running back Vic Ballard, colon, quote, it feels like a lot of people just forgot about me, end quote. There's a typo in the tweet, but that only makes it more authentic. And so this blog post, Tom just embeds that tweet and he says, quote, damn, Vic Ballard is right. I totally forgot about him. I've forgotten about a lot of guys, and I bet you have two frown emoji. Let's remember some of them, end quote. And then Tom just lists a bunch of guys. NFL guys in honor of temporarily forgotten Colts running back, Vic Ballard.

They might all be running backs, but I don't have time to check. And that's the whole blog post. Tom just reels off the names of 18 guys with zero context. Do you mind actually if I put on some smooth 1985 type shit and remember these guys real quick? Thank you. Sam Khan Gatto, Olandis Gary, Ryan Grant,

Ontario Smith, Mike Anderson, Nick Goings, Steve Slate, Lamont Jordan, Correll Buckhalter, Navajo Tahi, Tatum Bell,

Willie Parker, Marion Barber, Najay Davy, Port. Anthony Thomas. Kevin Barlow. Dominic Williams. Ruben drones. Okay. How'd that go for you? It's unexpectedly super pleasant, right? It's legitimately comforting, right? And I say that even though, and don't tell anyone I said this, I find the act of remembering some guys hugely comforting, even if I personally only remembered six of those guys just now. Six out of 18. I forgot 66% of those guys. I won't say exactly which six guys I remember out of respect for the 12 guys. I don't. But like, I remember Nagee Davenport.

Okay. In the comment section on Tom Lays, let's remember some guys blog post explodes. Suddenly you got hundreds of blog commenter guys remembering hundreds of NFL guys. Everybody on the internet, just naming guys. The original Deadspin post is still up, but the comment section got nuked long ago. It's too long a story, even by my standards. And so now let's remember some guys becomes a minor cottage industry. Just arbitrary lists of guys with no additional commentary. A reliable source of content for Deadspin and other sports and maybe culture websites of

its ilk. Here we have Let's Remember Some Guys. the video version. Do you remember New York, New York, Engie, Dan Pasqua? Yes, Dan Pascoe, another New Jersey legend. When I was a kid, there was somebody that was pretending to be Dan Pasqua in North Jersey to get free meals at Italian restaurants, and he got in trouble for it.

It was fantastic. Specifically Italian restaurants? Yeah, because I think he would go in there and he'd be like, I don't want to make a big deal of it, but I'm Dan Pasqua. And they'd be like, Dan Pasqua. Okay, there's some commentary. Here's a dead spin video from 2018. called Remembering Some Guys, Colan 1988 Baseball Guys, starring then Deadspin staffers David Roth and Lauren Tyson.

They just open packs of old baseball cards and remember the guys. I like half remember Dan Pasqua. I'm giving myself half a point for Dan Pasqua. I had no idea about the Dan Pasqua Italian restaurant imposter, though. So there's an inside baseball media subtext here in that 20. In 2018, it's still the era where major blogs are under huge corporate pressure to do more video stuff, to pivot to video. Video content was a bygone fleeting whim of the industry. Certainly nobody's under any pressure to try video stuff now.

But in 2018, Deadspin responds to this broad and temporary, do more video imperative by doing the dumbest, most pointless, least visually compelling videos. they can think of. Nowadays, Tom and David and Lauren are all blogging and remembering guys on the wonderful website, defector.com. But even in this context, remembering some guys, it's one of those things that starts out as an ironic joke, but then it turns out that people sincerely love doing it for real. I wonder why that is, really. The question of why remembering some guys holds such immense invigorating cosmic power is explored. In fact, in the single greatest three tweet thread in Twitter history, I don't want to be the guy who's just reciting tweets word for word on a video podcast all the time. I want better for myself.

And also for you. But like, this is important. Okay. So 2021. Somebody with the Twitter display name, E.M. Hudson says, quote, dudes can literally just sit around and name old sports players and just have the best time. End quote. This tweet goes mega viral. 198,000 likes, 2,800 plus replies. And somebody with the Twitter display named Kyle Boggs. Kyle Boggs replies and says, quote,

decades of gender slash sexuality research tell us that this is a dude thing because some men still don't have social permission to create direct bonds with other men. Those bonds have to be indirect through sports talk, women, etc., which is one of many ways heteropatriarchy hurts men too. End quote. That's what Kyle Boggs says. And then somebody with the Twitter display name Crash U.S. override replies to Kyle Boggs and says, quote, any relation to Wade Boggs? And I just about died. I am a mere spectator, an awestruck observer of the let's remember some guy's phenomenon. I am, myself, an unremarkable, total amateur guy rememberer. You know what I remember?

bands, super famous bands, semi-famous bands, semi-obscure bands, super-obscure bands, dead-eye dick. That's a band. Remember them? Remembering some bands is not quite the same activity as remembering some guys, slightly different vibes, slightly different core audience, I suppose. But there is a strikingly similar spiritual effect. Sports and pop culture do go together. And the wildest experience of all is when you remember a sports guy and remember a music person simultaneously at any point in your life, for any reason or for no reason at all, an oft-remembered sports guy and an oft-remembered pop singer can become inexplicably permanently intertwined in your head to the benefit of both those people and to your eternal benefit as well. Let me give you an example. In the late 80s, I read an article in Sports Illustrated about what major league baseball relief pitchers do to amuse themselves in the bullpen during rain delays. That's the premise of the article, some human interest for you, some boyish whimsy.

Also, I cannot find this article online. And so I'm doing this entirely from memory, and that memory may be partly or entirely wrong. What do relief pitchers do in the bullpen to entertain themselves and others during lengthy rain delays? This article describes various benign semi-childish antics, juggling mid-thundersstorm foot races, slip and slide action on the tarps and the infield, etc. But the specific image from this article that is stuck in my head for nearly 40 years now, I'm like 10 years old when I read this. It says in Sports Illustrated that Dan,

Quisenberry. Fan favorite Kansas City Royals reliever, Dan Quisenberry, a guy perhaps too famous to need to be remembered. It says in Sports Illustrated that during rain delays, Dan Quisenberry has been known to dance in the rain to Chade's smooth operator. Smooth Operator. The breakthrough 1984 single by the Fifee's. phenomenal jazz pop soul London band Shadeh. A band led by the phenomenal Nigerian-born singer Shadeh Adu. Shadeh the singer lead Shadeh the band.

If you're ever dancing or lip-sinking to smooth operator, or better yet if you're ever doing karaoke to smooth operator, I advise you to hit that, no need to ask as hard as you can just before the chorus. Pump your fist or do double finger guns or do a quick karate kick. if you are able. And don't forget the English accent on Ask. I advise you to somehow comically over-emphasize the no need to ask.

Huge crowd-pleaser. Trust me, Dan Quisenberry, five-time American League saves leader and 1985 World Series champion with the Kansas City Royals. Dan Quisenberry, with his famous bizarre submarine-style delivery, his pitching hand just inches from the ground on release. How many Little League pitchers in the 80s physically fell off the pitchers mound trying to imitate Dan Quisenberry's pitching motion? I cannot guarantee you that I personally didn't do that

while trying to do that. Dan Quisenberry, whose nickname was simply Quiz, and who sported a majestic, voluminous, great American hero mustache that looks the way drinking a cold six-pack of Budweiser feels. Dan Quisenberry likes to dance to Chade's smooth operator. And sitting there at 10 years old, reading Sports Illustrated, I took the liberty of committing that fact, scare quotes, to memory.

And I will never hear Dan Quisenberry's name without thinking about Chade's voice. And I will never hear Chade's voice again without thinking. about him. Coast to coast, L.A. to Chicago. If that line were sung by any other singer in pop music history, it would annoy the hell out of me.

That's not, no, but Chadee sang that line, and so I love it. I hear Chadee sing that line, and there it is. I can feel it, a soul-deep serenity, a warm blanket, a glittering portal, a childlike regression, back to the mid-80s. I hear Chade's voice,

and I am a kid again. I'm a kid who loves MTV, sports, video games, and bloopers. And also there's Dan Quisenberry. Now, it is possible. It is, in fact, likely that I am wrong about some part of this. I'm like 80% sure this article is in Sports Illustrated, and I'm like 40% sure it was Dan Quisenberry dancing to smooth operator. The shot A fan might have been some other relief pitcher,

a less memorable relief pitcher. but it does sound like something Dan Quisdenberry would do. I found this short video tribute to him on YouTube, and it's clear that our buddy Quiz is a real cut-up. Although quite serious when opposing American League hitters, Quiz has been known for his unusual antics in the bullpen and off the field. If you're not watching this, I need to tell you that at this point in the video, Dan Quisenberry playfully tosses his baseball glove over his shoulder,

and he picks up a water hose. Not a fire hose, not that large a hose, but bigger than a garden hose. Dan picks up a hose and he playfully sprays it around at, you know, waist height. He's a colorful guy. I cannot explain this to you as a 10-year-old, the image of Dan Quisenberry twirling around in a rain-misted bullpen to the sultry strains of Chade's smooth operator, his mustache glistening and the foggy stadium lights. This image just lodged itself in my head, and the older I get, the more that image stands

in for my whole childhood and for that whole era of humanity. What was life like in the 80s, Dad? Dan Quisenberry dancing to smooth operator. That's what it was like. Shadeh Aadu's voice is one of the most startling, the most soothing, the richest, the deepest, the saddest, the most devastated, the most triumphant. the most hopeful, the most resilient, the most righteously indignant, the most powerful physical forces ever unleashed on this planet. The sublime power of Chade's voice can manifest itself in totally

random, surreal, nonsensical, objectively frivolous ways. But Chade's supernatural powers of inspiration and consolation, this is another one of the things that starts out as silly and semi-ironic, but then, when you really, really, really need her, her voice can revive you and inspire you and console you and maybe even save your life for real. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 48th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s, Cole in the 2000s, and this week we are discussing By Your Side from the Shade album Lovers Rock, released in the year 2000. The language is so beautifully simple. And the melody is. so beautifully simple. And the sentiment is so beautifully simple. But as the early 21st century gets

darker and uglier and more horrendously complicated, this is the sentiment and this is the voice that might cut through it all and make it all bearable. The message of by your side is that you don't have to bear it all alone. Shade's voice wraps us in a warm embrace and says, let's remember some guys together. There are plenty of I'll be there for you type songs that I love very much, but I don't believe them. You know, I don't believe you'll actually be there for me, Bon Jovi or the Rembrandt's or Method Man, but Shadee I believe. Shadee I will always believe. Let's hopefully remember some ads. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar

raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca.com.com. I got two more very important notes on Dan Quisenberry. We'll do one now. A dear college friend, mine. We worked at the college radio station together. We're playing the Chemical Brothers and Macy Gray and the Roots and Gomez to a rapt listening audience of basically nobody. He's a big music guy, but also a big sports guy. And so my buddy's got a YouTube channel now

called Junk Wax Genius, where he just opens old packs of baseball cards on camera. This very much exists in the Let's Remember some guy's Expanded Universe. There is an awareness in these videos that this activity is both objectively pointless and incalculably life-affirming. My friend and I, we live in different states. We don't talk on the phone, and we've seen each other in person like four times in the last 20 years. But despite the fact that due to heteropatriarchy,

I still don't have social permission to create direct bonds with other men in any other way, I will say that it's cool that I can swing by my friend's YouTube channel every so often and just hear his voice. And we have Billy Hatcher, Mitch Williams, call that a rookie card for sure, Daryl Strawberry Diamond King,

off center, Tim Tuffle, Ed Hearn, Mets Hotpack, Jim Wynn, one of the best names for a pitcher, as opposed to Bob Walk, one of the worst names, or Eric Plunk, Dan Quisenberry. I'm glad they captured his weird delivery. Nice card there. It's a weird pitching delivery.

Even on a baseball card, it looks like Dan Quisenberry is throwing the ball directly at the ground. My friend's opening a pack of 1987 Donorous cards there, by the way, with the Roberto Clemente puzzle pieces. Helen Falashadei Adu is born in Ibadan, Nigeria in 1959. Her mother is an English district nurse, and her father is a Nigerian economics professor. Her parents separate when she's very young. She moves to England when she's four years old. She studies fashion design in London at the St. Martin's School of Art. She does a little modeling herself, and she starts singing backup with a hot London jazz funk pop soul band called Pride.

I appreciate how cool everyone looks and how hard everyone's working here. The bass player especially is playing his ass off. But the other members of Pride already seem to be aware that backup singer is not. not Helen Falashadeh Adu's natural role. Here we have pretty rare video footage of Pride playing a song called When You Can't Back Down in 1982 at the famed London Nightclub Heaven. The most compelling part of this video is when Chade herself just walks into the room as the band is playing.

It's not a supermodel runway walk necessarily, but there's an immediate gravity and otherworldly magnetism to this person. The camera seems reluctant to turn away from her. And so, the camera doesn't. Pride are a big whoop in the early 80s London nightlife scene, but Chade,

the singer's big break comes when she forms Chadeh, the band, with some fellow members of pride. Talking to the British magazine, The Times in 2010, Shadeh says, quote, I didn't have any confidence as a singer, but I found that I liked writing songs. End quote. Her first song to attract major attention, co-written by Shadei Adu and her pride bandmate, Ray St. John, is called Smooth Operator. Nothing another girl with another heart. Placing high stakes, making heart take.

He's loved in seven languages. No matter the context, karaoke, jukeboxes, bullpen, dance routines, etc. If you're given the option, please avoid the single version of Smooth Operator and instead select the album version, which includes Chade's spoken word intro, in which she describes a gentleman who is pretty clearly a fuck boy in the modern parlance. Yes, that is not 1984 terminology, but like this dude sure sounds like a fuck boy. Placing high stakes, making hearts ache. He's loved in seven languages. Then the keyboard goes br-oh-in 1984. Shadeh, the band released their debut album, Diamond Life, featuring their durable core lineup of Shade Adieu on vocals, Stuart

Matthewman on saxophone and guitar, Andrew Hale on keyboards, and Paul S. Denman on bass, augmented by horns and drums and percussion and whatnot. We got this super hardworking bass player from Pride in this new band. Okay, excellent. The way Chadei harmonizes with herself on the word lover boy, I feel like something crucial about our best case scenario vision of the 1980s snaps into place on the word lover boy. And though she is describing, unambiguously, a fuck boy, a proto-fuck boy, I do think that Shaday ad also moves in space with minimum waste and maximum joy. The pre-chorus of Smooth Operator is a Reagan-era-slash-Thatcher-hacker high point, I think.

The sumptuous meal Chade makes of the word, chance here. Sorry, chance. This is the star-making vocal performance of someone who is going to be maximum famous with admirably minimum effort. No need to ask.

Dig the saxophone, rapping luxuriously around Chade's voice there. Dig the bass, burbling underneath her voice like champagne bubbles. Dig the hypnotic, unhurried, Latin-inflicted tempo. Dig the total command of vibe by both the singer and her band. Chade's debut album, Diamond Life, is a huge hit.

Number two on the UK albums chart. Number five on the U.S. Billboard album chart. 10 million copies sold worldwide. If streaming numbers mean anything to you, if you hear one song from this record out in the wild now, it's going to be the one with the super hornball lyrics. Of course, I'm just kidding. Mostly, this song is called Your Love is King,

and the modest music video continues the wise tradition of pointing a camera at Shadeh and staying out of her way. Shade and maybe a deck of cards is all this situation requires visually. Dig the globe-trotting elegance of the groove here. Dig the sublime, smooth jazz-adjacent sophistication. Dig the tasty, windswept yacht rock overtones if you want to get real nasty. Dig the sax. Right now we don't need to hear a ton of saxophone per se, but we need at least like three seconds of sax.

And meanwhile, from the very start of her global super fame, even here on her band's first official single, Shidei has already mastered the art of making subtle gestures, feel grandiose. Even something as simple as her slightly drawing out those last four words, your love is king. There's an exponential impact. There is an immediate gravity and otherworldly magnetism to this person's voice. She is drawing you in.

She is already, from the very start, offering you protection, solace, comfort. This song is called I will be your friend. And she means it. She means the woo-woo's here most of all. Until the end of time. Here again is a phrase or a sentiment that you encounter often in pop songs. But I don't necessarily believe it when like Justin Timberlake tells me he's going to love me until the end of time. I know he's not talking to me personally, but you know what I mean.

Whereas Chade's voice has both the regal majesty of a pop star who will endure until the end of time. and a close personal, compassionate, reliable friend who will, indeed, remain your friend until the end of time. Shade is huge now. And here in the 80s, starting with Diamond Life, Shadee is going to put out three fantastic albums in five years. Do not get used to that rate of production. But dig the sauce, the heartbreaking and voice-breaking sauce. Shade is about to put on the word lies. The second shot A album comes out in 1985 and is called Promise.

Yes, 1985, just one year after the first album. This band might crank out a rad new album every year until the end of time. That song is called Is It a Crime? And there is substantial bombast. There is tasty, billowing, lapel-grabbing, ass-kicking saxophone action. But yeah, no, mostly it's the way her voice breaks on the word lies there. As her career progresses, Shade is going to sing some extraordinarily sad, profoundly heavy songs.

And as a result, coupled with her famous public reticence, she does some interviews, but not tons of them. She is a celebrity, but clearly are reluctant and increasingly reclusive one, Shadee develops a certain mysterious and intimidating reputation. In a 1992 interview with a writer and critic Michael Gonzalez, Shadee says, quote, I think people do think of me as this depressed person crying in my ivory tower. What I like personally when I listen to other people's music is when the music makes you feel something. Sad, happy, makes you want to dance, makes you feel elated.

Sadness in songs is positive because it brings it out of you. It brings the sadness out. It's not that the song makes you feel sad. The sadness is already there. The song just makes you recognize it. End quote. Same deal with horniness, by the way. Here we have the Sweetest Taboo, a U.S. top five hit off promise, which hit number one on the album charts in both the UK and the USA.

The Sweetest Taboo is a song about rampant, jubilant horniness. Listen, I could spend 45 minutes trying to think of a cringy winking. joky, half-clever way to say that, or I could just say the word horniness three times in 60 seconds and we could move on. We're all adults here. And if you're not an adult, you're better off learning about this stuff from Shadeh. Genuinely stupendous full band performance on the sweetest taboo also. Especially fantastic drumbeat. We got Dave Early on drums going the quick little jaunty bursts of piano, two from Andrew Hale. Du-do-do.

Stuart Matthewman on guitar and Paul Denman on bass, playing super 80s, slinky, rubbery funk that keeps you hooked without getting too flashy and demanding your attention. The ecstatic synergy, the electric current, between Chadee the pop superstar and Chadee the hot shit live band. minimum waste maximum joy the guitar alone here sheesh i can smell nineteen eighty five like a fart in a car and that's as sweet as nineteen eighty five has ever smelled there has to be a better way to put that but that'll do for now if you absolutely must classify this music if you insist on assigning it a genre and you're torn between pop or funk or jazz or soul, etc. You could do far worse than to just call this Quiet Storm,

the slow and sultry and rapturously intimate R&B variant Quiet Storm. Named initially for an extra sumptuous 1975 Smokey Robinson solo album. A year later, in 1976, Quiet Storm becomes a surprise blockbuster radio format. starting with Howard University Station 96.3 FM WHUR in Washington, D.C. on the Apocal Weekly show Melvin Lindsay's Quiet Storm, ludicrously smooth shit that can morph from immediate pop ecstasy to deep background ambiance as the situation demands. There's a fantastic pitchfork essay written by the critic and author and friend of the show,

Eric Harvey, that traces the 40-year-old. arc of Quiet Storm, from Marvin Gay to the Isley Brothers, to Luther Vandros, to Anita Baker, and on and on and on, all the way up to Whitney Houston and Tony Braxton and Jill Scott and beyond. But more importantly, Eric's got a playlist, an incredible 108 song playlist called All This Love, The Best of Quiet Storm, that moves more or less chronologically. Chade's smooth operator is the 68th song. I've been listening to this Quiet Storm playlist for the last nine hours straight. Unbelievable musical experience.

You ever do that? Just hyper-focus on one playlist and house the entire thing in one day. One of my best pure music listening days in ages. This song didn't make the cut, but I get it. Stevie Wonder, part-time lover, 1985. Another humid fragrance classic from 1985. Luther Vandros on backing vocals, plus Sarita Wright and Philip Bailey of Earth, Wind, and Fire. This song might be just a touch too fast and insistent to qualify as classic Quiet Storm,

but I have this weirdly vivid childhood memory. I'm sitting in the kitchen of my childhood home, mid-80s and the radio's on, just a small sub-boombox kitchen counter sort of deal. I'm sitting at the kitchen table drawing or coloring or whatever, and part-time lover comes on. And this eerie arresting serenity just washes over me. Something about the tinny imperfect fidelity of the radio, the tender, familiar command of Stevie Wonder's voice, and most importantly, this alarming, melancholy edge.

In that moment, I strongly doubt that I'm alone in my house, but I feel alone. And I'm mostly, but not entirely cool with it. You know, I'll never forget it. Shadee hits in that same way for me, this vague but alarmingly potent yearn for something or for someone or for some slightly or not so slightly bygone time. And that yearning intensifies the more she talks about how she'll always be there for you.

The third shot A album comes out in 1988 and is called Stronger Than Pride. This is my favorite song in this record. It's called Give It Up. Everything and everyone is so dialed in here. The Deft percussion the bubbling bass, the distant melodious backing vocals. But there's an exquisite loneliness to this song. Does that make any sense to you? It's fine if it doesn't make sense. It would lessen my exquisite loneliness if you agreed with me.

Shade is an impossibly cool and surprisingly prolific 80s pop star. Shadee is as cool and as prolific in the 80s as like Rihanna is when she's starting out in the 2000s. But now it's time for Shadeh to start acting like Rihanna now. Now it's time for the exquisite loneliness of Shade's music to intensify as she gives us less and less of it. In 1992, Shadee released their fourth album called Love Deluxe. It will be Shade's only album of the 90s. This song is called No Ordinary Love. She sings those words so sweetly that you don't even register the devastating,

I gave you all the love I got. I gave you more than I could give. Plus, we need the video, right? We need the sad mermaid video. We need the image of Chadeh, the Homeric Siren, the voice that can wreck a thousand ships. The sound of Love Deluxe is blurrier, more electronic. Here in the 90s, Shade is in musical dialogue, of course, with other Titanic throwback soul singers, from Mary J. Blige to Erica Badoo. But there's a trip-hop feel to this album, too. I hear the cerebral beauty of massive attack. I hear Portis head at their most deceptively serene. But only Chadee, the band, backing Chade the pop singer, could hit you as hard as no ordinary love hits you when she draws out each word of the chorus. A subtle, grandiose, extraordinary gesture she perfected ages ago. Possibly she perfected this

sort of thing, geological ages ago. The tiny micro-breaths between words there, between syllables. This is no ordinary love. The space between those notes is the most beautiful music this person or this band has ever made. Same deal with this song on Love Deluxe called Cherish the Day. You got to be kidding me. Shade sings, if you were more.

mine. She waits five seconds. She sings, if you were mine again, she waits another five seconds. She sings, I wouldn't want to go. She waits five seconds. And then the last two words hit you like a tidal wave. That's a life-changing Chadee moment that explains why Drake very famously has multiple Chadee tattoos. Get a job. Stay away from her. And that's it for Shade in the night. One classic album in 1992, Stuart Matthewman, Shade guitarist and saxophonist, Stuart works extensively with Neo-Soul star Maxwell on his splendid 1996 debut album, Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite. You can hear Chade everywhere and all sorts of other people, but Chadee herself often seems to have disappeared, both musically and temperamentally, Chadee becomes as ungodly powerful and

absence as a presence. It takes her eight years to put out another album. In the mid-90s, she goes through a divorce. She has a child. She shuns the spotlight. It's nothing personal, but she shuns us, her fans, her public. And we can only yearn for her as magnificently as she's year in song for various fuckboys. Talking to the fader in the year 2000, Shadee says, quote, if there's something big going on in my life, I can't switch it off in the middle and go make a record. Luckily, because I am in the position that I don't have to work, I can put the people in my life as a priority. A relative of mine got very sick, and I was there looking after her with my mom. I couldn't walk away.

You can talk about stuff and sing about stuff, but if you don't live it in the end, then it's all fate. end quote. Meanwhile, the long public silence only compounds and enriches her myth. DeAngelo will soon master this trick as well, accidentally or on purpose. The fifth Shade album finally comes out in November 2000 and is called Lovers Rock. And when you saw only one set of footprints in the sand, that's when she carried you. This song is called King of Sorrow. I'm crying everyone's tears is a phrase and a sentiment that you encounter less often in pop songs because very few pop stars would think to say it, and even fewer stars are capable of actually doing it. Dig the King of Sorrow video also, in which Shade plays a harried working mother who is also a glamorous pop singer. She walks through a grocery store the same way she walked through a hip mid-80s London nightclub. This album Lovers Rock is named for the extra-sumptuous and romantic reggae style that got very popular in London in the mid-70s.

Shadee, the band, the line-ups unchanged, Shade, Stuart, Andrew, Paul, but the sound here is less opulence, less jazzy. No saxophone blasts. What you get instead is some light-swooning orchestration and some cool electronic dissonance at the edges, in the ether almost. I would characterize the overall vibe as one of deceptive tranquility. I don't know what it means that she calls herself the King of Sorrow, not the Queen of Sorrow, but it definitely means something. One might hear this song King of Sorrow in the year 2000 and think fondly of 1985. Shade, in less than two decades, she's already got a timeless, eternal sort of voice.

that help define that era and can still transport you back to that era, if that is what you desire. But she herself is not confined to the 80s or to any time or place or mood. There is an insistent modernity to the Lovers Rock album. She is steely-eyed about the presence. She is steely-eyed about the past, also, given that the past is not solely a venue for cheap, dorky sports and pop culture nostalgia. This is a song about Chade's father, her Nigerian-born father's early experiences in London. It is called immigrant. The super heavy spaces between the lines here, he didn't know what it was to be black till they gave him his change but didn't want to touch his change but didn't want to touch his.

his hand, plus the robotic staccato intonation of, to even the toughest among us, Shadeh, now more than ever has mastered the art of conveying a feeling. Sometimes a light and lovely feeling, sometimes a dark and deeply sorrowful feeling, through both her lyrics and her phrasing. Let me give you another example. The first song on Lovers Rock, and the end of the song, album's lead single is called By Your Side. She's carrying you again. She's crying everyone's tears again. She'll be your friend till the end of time again. She's giving you more than she could give

again. This is no ordinary love again. And even the music literalizes the companionship, the support Shade is offering here. The chord progression descends when things look bleak. You think I'd leave your baby, and then there is a cautious ascent. You know me better than that. The chords descend again. You think I'd leave you down when you're down on your knees, then a cautious assent. I wouldn't do that. Repeat. I've never quite grasped the exact wording or the precise lyrical sentiment right here, but by now, even just a minute into this song, I understand her perfectly. right before she launches into the ah-ahs, and right after she sings, and if only you could see into me, the squeaks are essential. Also, here we have the By Your Side video

wherein the concept, as always, is point a camera at Chadeh, though here notably she is depicted amid a gorgeous orange sunset that is in fact so orange that you might describe it as worrysomely orange. It's like airborne toxic event orange. And therefore, Chadee,

maybe calmly and elegantly traversing the apocalypse, which fits, actually, because by your side is a song about the reliability, the steadfastness, the enduring, consoling presence of Shadeh, even though we're seeing less and less of her all the time. This album, Lovers Rock, is her first album in eight years, and she won't put out her next album for 10 years until Soldier of Love in 2010. And yet you do not question. You do not doubt her reliability, her consoling presence. I saw Shadei live at an outdoor amphitheater in Columbus, Ohio on the night of Monday, September 10th, 2001, the night before. I've been debating all the way up until right now how big a deal I should make out of this. And I guess I'm better off not making a huge deal of it here. But it was and it remains a huge deal to me in my ears

and in my head. I don't concretely remember much about that night. Nice night, cool breeze, the soft grass I sat on, a sense of uneasy but hard-fought piece that couldn't last, but maybe it could last a little while. But it didn't. They lasted less than 24 hours. There is before the Shade concert and after the Shadee concert in my head. And that's overwrought and unnecessary. That's too much for Shade herself to have to take on, even in my head. But Shade is a bit. to take on heaviness that isn't hers is kind of sort of maybe Shade's superpower. The vocal harmonies here on the words, when you're lost, and end you're alone. And then finally on bring you home.

And after all the violence and double talk, there's just a song and all the trouble and the strife. My first good friends to get married, they got married in 2000. And Chade's By Your Side was their first wedding dance. I remember standing there on the reception dance for watching them and being like, Shadee, all right. Excellent. Incidentally, the groom is a long-running fantasy baseball league so intense that they all draft in person every year. And I joined the league for exactly one year, but he kicked me out mid-season for inactivity.

Just so you know you're dealing with. I just asked my friend why he and his wife picked this song. and he said, we heard it in an episode of Sex and the City. Samantha finally threw in the towel. All this time, she'd been trying to make him just a perfect dick, fighting her feelings that he might be the perfect Richard. I don't know who Samantha is dancing with there exactly. I don't remember the names of any Sex and the City, guys.

I suspect his name might be Richard. They're both wearing robes. thus the through in the towel line. That clip kind of killed the vibe a little bit, I suspect, but that's okay. Shadei used to work as pure childhood nostalgia for me, and now she's more complicated, but as in most cases, musically at least, complicated is better. The baseball guys, I still remember, might also be more complicated and insightful than I anticipated. Did you know that Kansas City Royal Star Relief pitcher Dan Quisenberry

wrote a book of poetry? He retired in 1990 with 244 career saves, which currently puts him at number 41 on the all-time saves list. But despite that, Dan was not inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, which is bullshit. But yeah, Dan Quisdenberry published a whole book of poetry called On Days Like This in 1998, which is the same year he died of brain cancer. He was 45. If you don't mind terribly, I'd like to read one of Dan's poems. I think he's earned the last word here today. This poem is called baseball cards.

That first baseball card I saw myself. In a triage of rookies, I think, top the bodies that made the hill we played king of. I am the older one, the one on the right, game face sincere, long red hair unkempt, a symbol of the 70s, somehow a sign of manhood. You don't see how my knees shook on my debut or my desperation to make it. The second one, I boyish with a gap-toothed smile the smile of a guy who has it his way expects it I rode the waves crest of pennant and trophies I sat relaxed with one thought I can do this you don't see me staying up till two raining in nerves or post-game hands that shook

involuntarily. Glory years catch action shots, arm whips and body contortions, a human catapult. The backs of those cards cite numbers that tell stories of saves, wins, flags, records, handshakes, butt slaps, celebration mobs. You can't see the cost of winning. Lines on my forehead under the hat, trench line between my eyes. You don't see my wife, daughter and son, left behind. The last few cards, I do not smile. I grim face the camera, tight-lipped. No more forced poses to win fans. Eyes squint, scanning distance. Crow's feet turn into eagle's claw. You don't see the quiver in my heart, knowledge that it is over, just playing out the end. I look back at who I thought I was or used to be.

Now, trying to be funny, I tell folks I used to be famous. I used to be good. They say, we thought you were bigger. I say I was. We are so honored to be joined once again by Danielle Smith, writer, critic, podcaster, editor, editor, editor-in-chief, and author of the wonderful memoir, Shine Bright, a very personal history of Black women in pop. Daniel, thank you so much for being here. Well, you're welcome, Rob. It's lovely to see you. It's love to hear your voice. Likewise, likewise. Thanks so much for taking the time. I was listening. You, of course, did the Black,

Black Girl Songbook podcast for The Ringer, and you devoted a very early episode to Shadeh. And you talked about being inspired by her from the very beginning. And you talked about how Shadee for you embodies sort of the mix of love and ambition, or maybe the conflict between love and ambition. Like, how does Shadee embody and model that idea of ambition for you? I think, I think Shade is not that much older than me. So, I feel like we came of age in similar time frames. I feel like there was

I would look at her and I would see myself in her energy. I definitely wanted to and when my hair was long enough I would rock the Shadey ponytail. I wanted the Shadee red lip in times of great joy I turned to her

and it seems like, and maybe this is just my memory, but it seems like when you're in your early 20s and you like someone, and if you're straight like me, then a straight girl like me, then it's the boys that you like. And it's that era in your life when the love is so intense

and you have so little experience with adult emotions. And Shaday just seemed like she got it. and it seemed like, you know, I'd grown up listening to Motown and Philly Sound and there's probably not a bigger Donna Summer fan than myself. Sure. But Shade somehow felt like ours. Yeah, yeah.

And like she got me, she got us. And then when you add that song, when am I going to make a living, I think that in that moment in your early 20s, at least for me, if it's changed, to let me know, because maybe it has. I don't know. But that moment when you don't know how to make a living and you don't know if you're in love, if you should be in love, what a heartbreak really means and how long does it last? and then Shadez just right there for you. Yeah, you've talked about that song. It was on her first record, like, right from the very beginning.

Like, she seemed to understand that. And she seemed to be sort of inspirational for you, which is sort of a tricky thing in pop, right? Like, you hear a lot of songs trying to be inspirational, but, like, a lot of it can come off a little cheesy, you know, like they're just trying to sell you something. Like, what made Chadee sort of inspirational, but in a way that felt sort of genuine,

and sincere and like she got you and you got her. Well, let me say right off, Rob, that I love to be like walking on sunshine as much as anybody else. Do you know what I mean? Sure. Like I love a good inspirational girl you can do it. We're all in it together. We are the world.

We are the children. Like I'm here for it, Rob. Like I'm here for it. diamond life that was Rihanna before Rihanna Yes very much so okay right and I wanted a diamond life

a diamond life means that you last forever it means that you're beautiful it means that everybody loves you it means that you're rare it means that you're special it means that you're admired by all and sundry and so I don't know where else in that moment from a woman and a black woman where I was getting that in precisely that way musically.

Like I was still listening to and loving like Gladys Knight love overboard. Like, you know what I mean? And I still listen to, Gladys Knight is my favorite artist of all time, period, end of the story. So I still listen to Gladys Knight all the time And I listen to her even more relentlessly In that era And I was getting so much from neither one of us Who Wants to be the first to say goodbye

I was getting so much from Midnight Train to Georgia I was getting so much But Gladys was still Who my mom came of age with Right, right And so I just felt from Chade that she was the kind of girl

that I might bump into at the club in the ladies' room upset because my boyfriend was dancing with another girl and she would say you know what, fuck him. Yeah, yeah. Because you're beautiful

and I have some lip gloss that matches your blouse. And also, So my boyfriend's friend is here and he's single. And he told me he thought you were cute. So let's go back out there together. And we're going to hold hands and walk back out to the dance floor. And we're like the two finest chicks in the club at this point.

So that's what I mean when I say. I felt like she was mine and why she spoke to me so clearly. Like, I knew what a smooth operator were. I know that Motown had its idea of what a smooth operating man was. was like, but that was like my Uncle Johnny and him. Yeah. I'm talking about the guys that I was partying with. Right, right.

It's fascinating that she's, Chaudet, is this combination of like super elegance, but also sort of down to earth. Like she's like a fashion model. She's like a pop star. But she also seems, you can just tell like someone you'd run into in the bathroom at the club. Like there's this combination of, you know, inaccessibility and total. accessibility.

Like, what is that about? Like, how do you do that? I think for a girl who came up as, with hip hop, like, I came up, I didn't want to be super fancy. I wanted to, I didn't quite want to blend when I was out at shows or at nightclubs.

But, like, I didn't want to wear, like, a fancy skirt necessarily. all the time. I wanted to be able to dance all night. I wanted my hair and a ponytail because then I didn't have to worry about it. I wanted that one standout thing that made everybody say, oh, there's Danielle. For Shade, it was a red lip. For me, it was whatever it happened to be of a given Thursday or Friday night. And so I just, she was what we needed in that moment, not to compare her to TLC because they're so different.

But when TLC came out, hat to the back, sneakers at the club, athletic bra at the club, on the red carpet like that, it was a similar feeling of, again, I'm seeing, this is the kind of me I want to be. This is the kind of outside I want to be flying. And I don't have to look like I'm going to church at the club. I don't have to be in like business casual at the club. If the club says no sneakers, then I don't think that's the club that I really want to go to. Yes.

So and Chadee looks like the girl and is the kind of girl that shows up in ballet flats, jeans, a white t-shirt, a flawless ponytail. a low-key makeup situation going on. And she just seemed like she was free. Another way that she's like Rihanna is, I think it's easy to forget now that Rihanna put out a record a year for like a decade. Rihanna was just cranking out music so fast at the beginning of her career.

And now it's very different, of course. Shade in the 80s puts out three fantastic albums, you know, rapid fire in just five or six years. But starting with Love Deluxe, it's one a decade. You know, it's one in the 90s, one in the 2000s, you know, one in 2010. And that's it. Like, did it work to her benefits that she got a little more mysterious and remote and invisible a lot of the time?

Do we love her more because she's giving us less and less of her? Yes. I think it's calculated professionally, but I also think it's calculated personally. And let me go on record here and say, I've interviewed so many people, so many black women in R&B, so many black women in pop, black women in jazz. I have never interviewed Shaday. And it's like, who has, though? Right, right. Aside from, like, Donnie Simpson has a great interview with her on the smooth operator, U.S. rollout.

And he's so, I love Donnie. Donnie's my favorite. I interviewed him on Black Girl's Songbook. But he is so clearly smitten in that interview. Yes, yes. I'm like, Donnie, I'm going to need you to just breathe. And I say that again, and I say that again with love and affection. Like, for all I know, that's how I'm going to act if I ever interviewed her, right?

Like, sure. She just seemed so. the word cool is so overused, but her picture is really next to the word in the dictionary. And I think it's probably exhausting to be that cool all the time. I think that when you're in your 20s, being cool doesn't seem like a job. And then when you're in your 30s and your 40s, it takes a time. It makes a little bit more to pull that cool together. Good.

Yes. It does. Not that I would know anything about that, right? But I'm just saying, it does. I know all about it. As the coolest person, yeah, in my house, I can assure you it's exhausting, but it's rewarding. But it's rewarding at the same time. Yeah.

Yeah. It is like, yeah, each decade that goes by, you're further away from the center of things. And oh my God, sometimes it's so relaxing. My God. And I think for some Chade and for artists like Chade, for artists like Rihanna, Rihanna has chosen reinvention over relaxation and God bless. But I think that Shadeh. And we have to remember too, Janet didn't take, Janet Jackson didn't take 10 years.

but Janet got to a cadence of like what every three or four or five years and just and you would see this is before social media and so when there was like a tabloid shot of her she was always like what seems someplace really far away looking super regular God forbid she had allowed herself a cheeseburger and french fries and like it's hard to be a girl pop star and it's hard. Ask Madonna, ask Janet,

some of them don't live to tell the story. Ask Whitney. It's hard to do that. To always be beautiful. To always be cool. To always have them in the right outfit. To always say the right or the most provocative

or the most chill thing ever. To always write the song. that's going to, or songs, plural, that are just going to touch the heart and soul of not just the generation that you came up with, but then the generation underneath them. Like, this is a job, Rob, that's a job. Something you said on your show that I really loved,

you said, Helen Adu created Shadeh, so Helen Adu could just be. Like you talked about Shadeh, you know, it's her name is a pop star, it's the name of her band, but it's a pretty, protective persona. How do you think that's helped her? Do you think she's been able to just leave Chadee, you know,

the character, the monolith behind for increasingly long periods and then come back to it, sort of rejuvenated? Yes. I mean, as Black women, we have protective styles for our hair, you know? So we're either going to braid it. We're going to be deep conditioning it and putting it in twists. We're going to decide on wigs for a while. going to do whatever we're going to do. And I really think that Shadeh is that. It's not a protective

style. It's a protective persona. And she's under the air, like, soaking up rest and soaking up deep conditioning and soaking up. I don't have to get my real hair dirty with the ways of the world. I don't have to get my real soul dirty with the ways of the world. And I think that's the way you can in your 50s I think she was when was it Soldier of Love came out and that's the way you can

create a record like the song Soldier of Love like who's coming out with a record like that at that age that just snatches everybody by the throat

that that tells the story of her journey, right, as a singer-songwriter, that tells the story of the journey of just like women's and maybe just people's lives, like, in general, with regard to, like, still believing in love and relationship, when things can go so wrong and do go so wrong, just because life,

How can you do that if you're trying to do it every year for 40 years? If you're not living. Maybe you need a little bit of time. Yes, maybe you need a little bit of time to think and live. And maybe you need a little bit of time to marinate. Thinking about the Lover's Rock record, like that's 2000, you know, and it's been eight years since Love Deluxe, since her last record. Like when that album came out, Lover's Rock,

did you hear her in conversation, like in competition or whatever, with TLC or Destiny's Child or Lauren Hill or DeAngelo or even then, even in 2000, had Chade already become, you know, like an island unto herself, where she's not really having to compete with anyone else or even live on the same planet as anyone else. I will rarely say this about anybody, but Chade really has no competition. I think, and maybe I'm only saying this because she's gone, I think that when he used to and had competition. Right.

I think that Gladys Knight had and has competition. I'm just naming all my favorites. Naming all my Hope to Dies, all my legends, all my soul sisters. There's something about the mix of the way she looks,

the way she dresses. There's something about the discipline with which she managed, her tone and her notes. There's something about the vulnerability she allows herself

in the songwriting. And I know she writes and co-writes. There's a certain lack of performance in the performance so at least she's got me and millions of others believing. It seems it seems like her heart is really broken

when she's singing about a broken heart. The closest she gets to Motown, I think, in her writing is the song where she sings the lines. Your love is wider, wider than Victoria Lake. Your love is taller, taller than the Empire State.

Is that your love is king? It is. I can't, it is, right? Because then we're in the, Motown arena of like Ain't no mountain high enough You know what I mean? We're in that We're in that arena. I think that

But even then there's just something about the specificity of Lake Victoria And the Empire State Building, right? Above and beyond and I say this with nothing but love and respect for all

every ain't no mountain high enough that has ever been sung. Shout out to, is it Valerie Simpson and Nick Ashford, I do believe. But that specificity is something that Shade just kind of owns. She owned I think that people in her

wake have taken on some of that. I would put Siza, I would put LMA, I would put these people in that kind of space. Those are the kind of girls that I respond to, Money Long, those type of Kalani. Genaico

like these great folks but that type of specificity we just I don't know if we were used to it it sounded straight out of a diary right but yet

I didn't even know I think for years that Lake Victoria was like a real and like huge lake on the continent of Africa I think it might go over two countries I can't remember but I didn't even know that

but somehow I still felt like she was singing about my life right yeah so there's something in her voice in her songwriting that I just say

competition because she's doing it all at the same time you know how Oprah says you can't have it all you just can't have it all at the same time. I think Charday might be having it all at the same time. I think you and I both agree, we both love the song, King of Sorrow,

which is such a devastating song, but there's an incredible power to it. I'm crying everyone's tears as the opening line, and just calling it King of Sorrow. I don't know exactly what that means, but I know it means something incredibly important. What is that song and what is that phrase, is that title mean to you?

Well, in the patriarchy, king is over queen. So she's letting you know that I'm, it's even more than being the queen of sorrow. That's how I always took it. And I always took it also that she's, you know, Nigerian but British. And that's where they have the kings and the queens and stuff

still over there. So that's, I imagine just a part of her imagination, and that language. I don't know if I automatically just think of kings and queens all the time when I'm writing or talking about music.

But I think she probably does because there's King of Sorrow, but there's your love is king. You know what I mean? Like she's going to go back to it. But I really feel like when she says I'm crying everyone's tears, I was like,

oh my God, it doesn't matter that she's British. It doesn't matter that she's Nigerian. The thing is, it's very much giving just global black blues here. Okay, like I heard, I was the type of person in my 20s. I was going to jazz club. I was seeing Shaka Khan sing at jazz clubs

when she was on tour and she would come to clubs in San Francisco after the big show and just sing to a small group. Rosie Gaines, a great prince-affiliated vocalist. I've seen her. Joan Osborne was singing the blues around the Bay Area when I was in my early 20s. Shout out to Ann Powers for making me go to some of those shows. I sell this to say, my blues, like, connection, it's, like, small but kind of elite, right? So when I

When I heard her say I'm crying everyone's tears I was like This is just the blue This isn't even rhythm in blue This is not R&B This is B Like

And just in that way that You know It can feel As a black woman That you are just carrying Everybody's burdens like you are I mean you've got your own

and then you got your partners you got your kids if you have kids or you have your found family you have the job you have and all of this while still being considered

low on the totem pole of humans on this earth so to hear her saying I'm crying everyone's tears I could cry right now because Jesus Christ, like who's singing the blues in,

what was that, 2000? What year was that, Rob? I don't know. Like, who's singing? Yes, like, and she came in stomping, like, y'all are going to hear me. I'm starting the song with this.

This is a lot of buried lyric. Yeah. I'm letting you guys know where I am right now. Yeah. And what that conveyed to me is she's telling me, this is where I am right now, and that conveyed to me,

And I bet this is probably where you guys are right now. And I think that energy, you know, I think about by your side, right, which is a song like, she'll always be there for you. She'll be by your side, lay your head on my shoulder. Like, this is a classic pop song sentiment, but it sounds completely different. It sounds more sincere. She sounds more reliable when she sings it. You believe Chade.

Like, what is it about her that she's able to radiate, you know, this support and this solace for so many people globally. I don't know what is going on with her. And she has made that so. Right. Okay. She, I have no idea. I don't know if she has a man, a girlfriend.

I don't know if she's got three boyfriends at the same time. I don't know if she's. happy of a given moment, sad. The main thing I know is that she loves her child. She's made that clear and been loud and proud about that. Very much. And that's like where she lets us in. Right.

That's like the door she opens. The mom door, she can give you that. Because I think she wants us to emulate. Yes. That kind of unconditional love. Yes. Yes. But anything else, that's Auntie Chade's business.

and I think that's why we're all able to find ourselves in her because there's room. There's room. One of my favorite songs of all time is Umbrella from Rihanna, and it's a great song like I'll be by your side. It's a great song like you've got a friend. It's one of those songs that can be platonic, or it could be like the beginning of the relationship,

it could be the middle, it could be toward the end. Yeah. But the thing about by your side, I don't know. It's just because I don't know anything about Chate. I mean, we know a bit about Rihanna's life. It's a different era, too. It's hard to have secrets in this era. It's hard to hide.

It's hard to have secrets. Yes. So we know the loves and there's, you know, there's duets and there's all kind of things that you can, oh, she must be and maybe this is going on and all the, and now marry with children. So you know what I mean? You know the. Right. But you don't know anything about Shadee so you can just impose yourself upon her.

Her life is your life. Your life is her life. She's singing about, like I said, about Lake Victoria, but I would be writing about Lake Merritt in Oakland, California. And mean it just as hard. I would mean it just as hard. Yes. One of the better lakes. It's a man-made lake.

Yes. Are you familiar with Lake Merritt in a man-made lake? I used to live there. I used to walk around it. I used to push your baby carriage around it. I know all about Lake Merritt. Yes, I love Lake Merritt. I don't know if I've ever listened to Shaide.

Yeah. Oh, man, not on a walk around Lake Merritt? Come on, Rob. You're missing out, man. I'm going to have to fly out there just to do that. Yes. Yes. So it's just, it's like I'm saying, like,

we all have our Lake Victoria. We all have our Lake Merit. We all, and Chadee just lets us have it, man. Like, I'm trying to figure out sometimes. I've been spending, I've spent a career. I spent my adulthood trying to figure out why the songs, whatever year it's from, it sounds like it came out yesterday. Yes.

I don't understand how smooth operator right now. Frankie's First Affair, right now. These are 40-year-old songs, 40-plus-year-old songs. And yeah. And the kids play them like they came out yesterday. day. I get it. I will get in, I will get in, well, let me not lie and say I'll get into the car with my nephew because I won't because he's my nephew and that's how he drives. Right. Sure. But I'll stand near his car with him while he's waxing it. Okay. Yes. 10 feet,

he's going to play shot. He's going to play shot. Yes. Okay. Exactly. I'll wave at him from across the street. And he's, we'll play Shade. If he's, if he has a girlfriend, what's he playing, Shadeh? It's a good move. My niece and, and these are people, my nephew's 21 and my niece is 25.

Right. These are, these are young people. They feel like they're grown, but they're young people. And it's weird for them that I know Shaday. And I'm like, what, how do, what?

It's weird for you. Yeah. What are you talking? You know, this song, Auntie? Yes, ma'am. I do know that song. My God, they're into her

learning, love and heartbreak. Like, again. Hmm. Again. And I remember and that's another reason I think she stays, I always stay, Shaday's in a castle somewhere. That's the reason why

she stays in her castle. That's a lot of, of emotional labor. I remember when Mary J. Blige told an interviewer it wasn't me. I wish I can remember the person that she said it to, but she basically said, I'm tired of singing those sad songs. Like, I'm tired of it. Like, it's a lot.

I'm not sad right now. I think Lauren Hill, like in the years, in the early years after miseducation, was like the same people are always like, well, Lauren's late to her show. She had that reputation. To be honest, I always hated when people were complaining about Lauren being late. Lauren can come when she feels like it as far as I'm concerned. She'll be there

and get there next morning. Exactly. Exactly. I'll be there. You know what I'm saying? She's still sipping on my cocktail. With breakfast, yes. That's what I'm talking about, Robsey.

We're the same. But I think Lauren said something to the effect. Like, I'm not in that space. I don't want to go out and sing those songs. Sometimes she might be on the way to the show. I could hear her do lost ones hourly. Yes.

I could hear it hourly, Rob. Live? I can hear it hourly. Can you imagine how one would feel after doing it full out to the full out extent to quote one? Can you imagine doing that every night? And having to think about the person

that you probably wrote that song about, we won't mention any names. I have to think about that person. or it's like every night and Chadeh, like, you want her to go out on tour every two years talking about, I'm crying everyone's tears, I would have like, come on Rob. Like, it's, it's too much. I used to think about this even with like women like Nancy Wilson, the jazz singer, not the, I guess, Rock singer. It's like, she had that song about running into, what is that song about running into,

running into, running into your husband with his like side girlfriend at the cafe and then waiting, not addressing him in the restaurant in the cafe, but telling him, guess who I saw today, right, that song? Yeah. Nancy Wilson is on record saying it's a hard one to do. and I just can't imagine sweetest taboo every night I see sweetest taboo is the song that made me ask myself and I'm sure it's made a lot of people

ask themselves, am I the problem? Am I a heartbreaker? Am I the villain in this story? And you want her to go out and sing that every other night? Yeah. Sometimes I think you're just too good for me. Oh, my God.

Oh, Rob, see, you're making me. Why did you, is this the emotional episode? I was invited to the emotional episode. It is now. It is now. Yes. This is a video podcast and we just try to make people cry. That's our purpose for being here.

Because it's not, it's not fair, Rob. Why don't you invite me on the, like, the happy episode? You can do whatever you want. The Walking on Sunshine episode. Okay. You got it. You got it. We'll make an exception.

We'll do, that's a 2000 song in spirit. We will get you the happiest song we can think of next time. Can we like, what's that song from Desiree? You got to be. Oh, there's one of those inspirational songs. That's a good one. And that one works. Oh, that's a great one.

We can do that one. Rob, that's a good one. That's a good one. Yes, and British too, right? British? I think so. I hope I'm right about that, but I think so, yes. I think.

That's right. Great video. Great video. Yes. Okay. There we go. The era of white seamless videos. White seamless in the background.

Okay. I'll talk to you about anything at any time. And next time we talk, yes, it will be in a much happier circumstance. No more crying everyone's tears. It's time it's time to walk on sunshine. Danielle, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for talking. It's great to talk to you, Rob. Always. I love this show. Please keep doing it like forever. I will. Thank you so much. I mean, so well. Thank you, Daniel.

Thanks very much to our guest this week, Danielle Smith. Very special thanks to David Quisenberry and the whole Quisenberry family for graciously allowing me to read Dan Quisenberry's poem. Dan's book of poetry is called On Days Like This and is published by Helicon 9 editions. Thanks to our producers, Olivia

Kriri, Juliana Ress, Justin Sales, and Chris Sutton. Animations and graphics by Chris Calliton. And special thanks to Cole Cuchney. Thanks to you for listening. And now, let's all go listen to By Your Side. Bye Shade.

We'll see you next week. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life?

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