I remember the feeling I had when I discovered Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun CD or Jill Scott's Who Is Jill Scott? CD. India.Arie and Meshell Ndegeocello also evoked those feelings with their last CDs. I felt like I finally had some warm, peaceful, comfortable, intelligent, spiritually-centered black music I could listen to over and over again.

Theirs was music that celebrated the magic of love, the mystery of being human, and the beauty of the black experience. The sound itself was as deeply personal and emotional as the words that accompanied it.

This week I found the same experience in Jon Christopher's new Love and Magic CD. Christopher's debut album is a musical tour de force, far surpassing the expectations I had for a new recording artist. But this is no ordinary CD. Like modern day alchemists, Christopher and his production team mix melody, beat, spirituality, poetry, and spoken word into a rich, tasty blend of music.

The lyrics are clever, enlightened and intelligent, with depth and sensitivity rarely seen in today's popular music. And the music itself is richly layered and textured, not just evoking a mood but fully creating one, even as the CD switches styles from jazz to R&B to tribal to dance.

At first, I wondered how a CD with any significant amount of spoken word could possibly hold my interest, but Christopher does it. He has developed a clever mix of song and prose, on some songs reserving the singing parts for the choruses and hooks in much the same way that commercially successful rap music employs spoken word with catchy hooks. But on other songs he sings all out, and his gentle voice against the mellifluous music creates a powerful sound.

By far, my favorite track is "Who Showed Them The Way?," which poignantly asks the question of how black people betrayed other black people in Africa by showing the colonial slave traders how to find them. "And now we're living in a new world," Christopher says, "and most regrettably, we're still being betrayed."

Most of the songs seem focused on finding purpose in our lives, and the message seems perfectly suited for today's increasingly expansive understanding of spirituality. "You know you are ascending here, when it no longer matters where you're going, or where you've been," Christopher says in the second track "You're Ascending."

In a display of musical flexibility, Christopher experiments with various musical styles throughout the CD. Club kids will enjoy the dance tune "All My Lifetime," which Christopher reports may be made into a 12-inch. The title track, Love and Magic, is the closest Christopher comes to hip hop, but even when he does hip hop, he still puts his own spin on the musical genre with a gospel-esque sound and crafty lyrics.

The followup song, "Save Me," is a mellow love song with a pop/R&B sound that I found both familiar and hard-to-place at the same time. Similarly, "I'll Always Be Here," reminds me of someone else but I can't think of who it is. I'm not a fan of all the musical styles used in the CD, but there's nothing about this CD I dislike.

Jon Christopher is a talented lyricist who understands music, while Art and Scott Powell bring a professional quality to the musical production that is neither too polished or too gritty. Love and Magic is a real treat that takes the listener on a spiritual/musical journey from the depths of fear to the heights of love and beyond.

Love & Magic is already available in some music stores and will soon be available online at Amazon.com. The CD is dedicated to Christopher's co-writer and producer Scott Powell, who was a victim of the September 11 terrorist attack.

© Copyright 2002 by Keith Boykin.