Happy 30th Anniversary to Tevin Campbell’s second studio album I’m Ready, originally released October 26, 1993.
The way seas parted at his first step into the water, his mother could have named him Moses. At just 12, Tevin Campbell captured the ear of Blue Note flutist Bobbi Humphrey who brought him to Quincy Jones’ Qwest label at Warner Bros. Records. His initial feature, “Tomorrow (A Better You, Better Me)” from Jones’ award-winning Back on the Block (1989), rose to #1 on the R&B chart. Next, he took a role in Graffiti Bridge (1990) with another smash, “Round and Round,” on the soundtrack.
When constructing his platinum debut T.E.V.I.N. (1991), Campbell tried a bit of everything. The hip-hopping “Just Ask Me To” (also used in the film Boyz N The Hood) made it inside the R&B Top 10, but his power ballad “Tell Me What You Want Me to Do” went all the way to #1. Even without a video to promote the slow jam “Alone with You,” the same thing happened. It seemed Tevin Campbell couldn’t throw a rock without hitting #1 somehow.
Gauging what he could do and where music was headed, his team aimed to catapult him into the stratus where he belonged. Accordingly, his sophomore disc I’m Ready matched premier R&B production with Campbell’s flawless pipes at a time when his fanbase was rabid for him. And that’s no exaggeration.
A rush of a thousand fans injured two people trying to get to the megastar during an in-store record signing in Southfield, Michigan during a 1994 promotional tour. The fracas was so crazy Campbell and his bodyguards had to take cover in the stockroom. Clearly, the promotion was more than effective.
Campbell projected composed confidence, the real-life embodiment of enviable cool. He had the makings of a contemporary soul icon. To get him there, Warner enlisted vastly capable producers: Narada Michael Walden, Prince (under the alias Paisley Park), and—at his mother’s behest—the duo of Babyface and Darryl Simmons. The latter entity was tasked with providing its first single and succeeded legendarily with “Can We Talk.”
The laidback teenage love song waxed poetic about being too shy to get to know someone better. No sentiment could be easier to sell to young devotees. It took off like wildfire, reaching #9 on the Billboard Hot 100. As for R&B, it went to #1 and stayed for three weeks. To date, it remains a beacon of ‘90s nostalgia inspiring spontaneous singalongs at the mention of its title.
Upon purchasing it in 1993 though, I discovered a curious detail. Babyface’s years-long righthand man L.A. Reid was missing from the credits. After collaborating on Toni Braxton’s self-titled blockbuster debut earlier that year, the two separated—at least in part—over “Can We Talk.” Reid wanted the song reserved for up-and-comer Usher. Babyface refused, which proved to be the camel-back-breaking straw.
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Had they not prevailed there, the second single “I’m Ready” was in waiting to nearly match its chart showing. The twinkly declaration of love was obstructed from the R&B top spot, however, by the 12-week reign of R. Kelly’s “Bump ‘N Grind.” Babyface and Simmons also stacked the deck with such winners as “Always in My Heart” which reached a respectable Pop #20 and R&B #6. It found particular favor with Campbell’s lifelong idol Aretha Franklin who invited him to perform it for her birthday soiree.
The pop-soul offerings (requisite for that time) were handled by Walden, a master of the format. “Tell Me What You Want” proved he could steer Campbell’s voice well. For instance, “Don’t Say Goodbye Girl” is a considerable feat to pull off. There are junctures in the dramatic arrangement where one thinks Campbell is at the topmost limit of his range. Just then, he reaches into his back pocket and finds a handful of even higher notes to casually toss into the air. And there’s one familiar well such tactics get drawn from.
“Whitney Houston knew I was trying to sound like her!” he confirmed without contrition on TV One’s Uncensored. “Around the time that Narada did my songs, he was sort of doing the same for ‘All the Man That I Need.’ I imitated her voice. I did!” The “male Whitney” comparison seems odd, until one hears the embellished note-trails and subtle caresses of lyric in “What Can I Do.” They’re Houston all the way. Her reading of “I Believe in You and Me” from The Preacher’s Wife (1996) confirms it.
Although essential to some of Houston’s biggest tunes, Walden did more than facilitate mimicry. The sugary, innocent “Brown Eyed Girl” (which Campbell co-wrote) and prayer-like introspection of “Infant Child” put Campbell’s stamp on youthful balladry as did big-voiced adolescent contemporaries Shanice and Tracie Spencer.
While the other teams focused on radio material, Prince saved I’m Ready from monotony. The boppity “Halls of Desire” toyed with cheeky metaphors for intimate playtime. Most memorable though was the starkly sexual “Shhh” (a.k.a. “Break It Down” as most Black folks have retitled it, including the artist himself). “In the daytime? / I think not / I’d rather do you after school like some homework / Am I gettin’ you hot?” When Campbell’s mother walked in on the session for the copulative come-on, Prince had to convince her, one, to let him finish recording, and two, to leave.
“I was in the booth the whole time,” he recounted to Uncensored. “I’m just standing there with the headphones, but I know why she was frustrated because I could see the look on her face as she’s listening to the song. I know my ma. She can’t hide her expressions.” The steamy gamble paid off with another fan favorite R&B Top 10 entry and concert staple. Seeing its reception, Prince couldn’t resist repossessing the racy ballad on The Gold Experience (1995), making it a seven-minute, bestial, rock romp.
At one point, Prince was supposedly in talks to produce the entire album featuring unreleased house party chant “The P” (meaning “penis”). True, the hypermasculine headspinner could have fit on a Jock Jams compilation next to K7’s “Come Baby Come,” but that was not the vibe they were going for. Had it remained, his tender serenades might have been interrupted by Campbell fast-rapping “how many ways can you work the P?”
Prince wasn’t entirely sex obsessed though. If we’ve learned anything from history, it’s that a What’s Going On balances out a Let’s Get It On. The Paisley Park uptempos provided thought-provoking, sociopolitical fare that broke out of the confines of the bedroom. “Uncle Sam” pleads for equality in a racist America (“I’m your nephew, yes it’s true, oh, can’t you hear me, Uncle Sam?”) where “Paris 1798430” cast the young singer as an American expatriate fleeing economic discrimination (“Gimme a call when we can live as large as you do”).
I’m Ready would prove to be Campbell’s double-platinum career peak. It reached Pop #18 and R&B #3, garnering GRAMMY nominations in triplicate. Modest sales of subsequent releases Back to the World (1996) and its sober, adult reintroduction Tevin Campbell (1999) led many to count him out as he shifted to a quieter life outside of music industry pressures.
And then in 2018, a backhanded comment from a social media snarker appeared to telepathically signal every dormant fan to rush to his defense. All at once, Team Tevin was again poised to stampede for their golden boy. Director Ava Duvernay was among them, vowing to write him into her sensational TV series Queen Sugar. For each critic and scoffer who asked “Can we talk?” Campbell’s active supporters succinctly answered back a flat no.
At his zenith, Campbell was only a child, but his talent earned him grownup money. That precedent tilled the ground for ‘90s R&B starlets like Aaliyah, Usher, Brandy, Monica, and Destiny’s Child to be taken more seriously, becoming pop crossovers and commercial dynamos. Campbell’s was hardly the first such breakout, but his came at a definitive moment in culture. Most teens’ coming-of-age moments are unfledged, a little shaky at first, and largely inelegant. But not Tevin Campbell—he was ready.
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