Mahogany Soul is the second studio album by American singer Angie Stone. It was first released in the United States on October 16, 2001, by J Records. Conceived after her departure from Arista, the transition allowed Stone to exert more artistic control over the album for which she enlisted a variety of producers and songwriters, including Raphael Saadiq, Warryn Campbell, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Chucky Thompson, Swizz Beatz, and others, though she co-wrote or produced on most of the material herself.
The album received generally positive reviews by music critics, some of who would call it a defining moment of the neo soul movement of the early 2000s as well as Stone's masterpiece in the years after. It debuted and peaked at number 22 on the Billboard 200, reaching Gold status in the United States, and entered the top ten in Finland and the top 20 in Belgium and the Netherlands, becoming the singer's highest-charting international success. By 2004, the album has sold more than a million copies worldwide.
Recording of the album started in Sepember 2000.[9] In a 2001 interview with Billboard magazine, she commented on the process: "I was dealing with a brand-new baby — a two-month-old sleeping in the studio as I played and recorded – and post-partum blues, feeling sorry for myself. This album is the grits and the gravy."[9] Stone further described Mahogany Soul as "warmer, with more heartfeld lyrics" and called it a "well-rounded, adult album, with youthful, street sensibilities."[9] In a 2018 interview, she cited the album as her "defining musical achievement," adding: "Mahogany Soul was mostly me. It wasn't watered down by anyone else's help. I had some lyrical help to some degree, but I started it, somebody jumped on the bandwagon and either I finished it or we finished it. But all the concepts and subject matters came from a very, very broken [...] young woman, and a very headstrong woman at the same time."[13]
AllMusic editor Jose F. Promis called the album "one of the best R&B albums of 2001". He found that Mahogany Soul "delivers more of the organic, gritty, rootsy yet sophisticated soul which put her on the map as a solo artist. The production is great and the songs are funky, mature, and intelligent, but when she truly shines is when she actually spreads her wings and glides away from her neo-soul trappings, which she manages effortlessly."[14] Similarly, the Los Angeles Times wrote: "There is a sense throughout of real stories, real people, real emotions – and that's as good a definition as any for true soul music. One of the year's most commanding works."[16]Billboard remarked: "Stronger musically and lyrically, Mahogany Soul oozes with heart-warming energy that's simultaneously contemporary and old-school. Stone once again rolls her gospel-honed vocals around real-life issues and emotion-filled lyrics."[21]
Reviewing for PopMatters in October 2001, Mark Anthony Neal hailed Mahogany Soul as "an accomplished piece of R&B music" in a year with other impressive debut albums by singers in the genre, including Alicia Keys' Songs in A Minor, Bilal's 1st Born Second, and Res's How I Do. He highlighted Stone's detailed lyrics, casually sassy "down-home" persona, and use of sophisticated samples in the context of authentic soul music. In response to the popular reception for the lead single "Brotha", Neal said he regards it as a "passionate and thoughtful defense" of African-American men, while pointing out "brutally trenchant" perspectives of men elsewhere in the album's relationship songs.[2]Rolling Stone's Barry Walters found that "like its title suggests, Mahogany Soul isn't flashy [or] even all that catchy [...] Like D'Angelo, Stone specializes in dramatic moods expressed with mellow methods. Give her understated passion time to marinate, and Stone's soul picnic will satisfy."[20]
Entertainment Weekly journalist Tom Sinclair felt that "too often Mahogany falls into the same artistic cul-de-sac that made D'Angelo's Voodoo more admirable than enjoyable; the preponderance of tastefully atmospheric filler topped with melismatic vocal athletics makes Mahogany more so-so than soulful."[15]The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic, singling out "Brotha" and "Bottles and Cans" as highlights while finding the album in general to be "longer on groove than song" and "longer on song than the brothas".[22] Stephen Dalton from NME called the album "well-made, but very boring nu-soul stuff." He found that "Stone is stranded in prematurely middle-aged MOR."[18] Writing in 2009 for BBC Online, Daryl Easlea said Mahogany Soul "remains her masterpiece" and called it "a confident musical statement of what it means to be African-American [that] came to define the neo-soul movement of the early 21st century".[1]
Mahogany Soul debuted and peaked at number 22 on the US Billboard 200 in the week of November 24, 2001,[26] selling 71,000 copies in its first week of release.[27] It also entered the top five of the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, reaching number four.[28] On February 12, 2002, it was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of more than 500,000 units.[29] By June 2002, Mahogany Soul had sold 615,783 units in the US[30] and as of September 2003 has sold 758,000 copies domestically.[31] In July 2004, The Advocate reported that the album has sold more than a million copies worldwide.[32]
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