The best Jodeci songs are slick marches that focus on the body, like this album’s “Checkin for You” and “Stress Reliever.” Atop it all is K-Ci. (There have been some projects by individual members and by the Hailey brothers together, but nothing of note since 2000, the same year that D’Angelo’s “ Voodoo” emerged.) And if you can forgive the album’s concessions to the musical innovations of the last decade or so, like the Timbaland-assisted production on “Incredible,” it’s a logical, if slightly aged, continuation of the group’s music from its prime. “ The Past, the Present, the Future,” the fourth Jodeci album, arrives 20 years after the last one. In the early- and mid-1990s, Jodeci was the group that fully imported hip-hop’s louche swagger into soul. Hailey is the centerpiece of Jodeci, which also includes his brother JoJo and the brothers Donald and Dalvin DeGrate. Just as R&B badly needs D’Angelo’s righteous howl, it also needs K-Ci Hailey’s ecstatic wail. A few months ago the soul savant D’Angelo released a new album, “ Black Messiah,” some 14 years after his previous one, “Voodoo.” On its own, it was an accomplishment, but it was also a reminder of many things that today’s R&B mainstream lacks: political engagement, the warmth and tension of a live band, a voice with fascinating crevices.
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