One of the leading post-disco producers in the early 80s was Kashif. His work exuded an icy coolness that female R&B singers with warm, volcanic voices like Whitney Houston and Melba Moore melted beautifully. Born in New York and recruited to play keyboards for BT Express when he was just a teenager, Kashif developed a sound that took the melodic and rhythmic complexity of his beloved band Earth, Wind & Fire and whittled it down to something for one man. could be run on a programmable synthesizer. The chords in his productions are rich crystalline blocks of sound. Composites fall from the sky like threads of digital rain. All of this appears on his debut single with Evelyn “Champagne” King, “I'm in Love,” co-produced by Morrie Brown and Paul Lawrence Jones III. The guitar strokes sound like ripples in time, the chords and pianos glow in colorful chains around King's voice and, of course, there's that voice, glistening like the sun in the snow as he sings of a love so metaphorical that he places it in kingdom of dreams.
King's career began as if she were in a biopic rushing through the events of her life. As a teenager she got a job cleaning offices at Philly International Records. a producer heard her singing “A Change Is Gonna Come” to herself while vacuuming and immediately signed her to a deal. The 'Champagne' she added to her name marked her entry into the adult world, an upgrade from her childhood nickname 'Bubbles'. it was now associated with a drink that connoted status and sophistication, despite still being in high school. But there was something undeniably effervescent about her voice, evident from the start of her career. It would float to the top of any mix it was placed in, pop and pop when it got there.
After releasing “Shame,” an early, enduring disco hit from 1977, King's singles never reached the same heights on the charts until an RCA executive introduced her to Kashif. “I'm in Love”, from the 1981 album of the same name, went to No. 1 R&B hit and then in 1982 Relaxhelmed entirely by Kashif, Brown and Jones, there's a sense that every element has been perfected into an express delivery system of soul and funk so clean, so light, it feels like a chill in the wind. Not a single song on it seems frivolous and it neither slows down nor lets down – there are no ballads Relaxunless closer “I'm Just Warmin' Up,” counts more as a quiet bedroom whisper than others. Neither track feels like it's dressing up for the album's lead single, “Love Come Down,” a song so perfect it's potentially the defining statement of post-disco R&B. There are few moments in music as incandescently ecstatic as when King sinks into a tongue-in-cheek “doo doo doot doo doo” before the chorus, as if her joy defies language.
