This is how I know you're either a white troll or just divorced from black culture. Nobody with black grandparents talks like this. First off smooth jazz is a staple of black culture. It's technically fusion jazz that leans towards r&b. Young black people moved away from jazz throughout the 50s to the early 70s as other genres (r&b, funk, disco) took hold. Fusion is what got some black people back into jazz. Wayne Shorter (Weather Underground) , Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, etc suddenly had black people coming to their shows heavily again. From there different strands developed and black people generally preferred the smoother, less experimental ones. "Smooth jazz" became a marketing coinage for radio programming. The same way "quiet storm" did. And in both cases they were heavily geared towards older black listeners. Smooth jazz didn't become a topic of derision or stereotypes until the commercial b*stardization of Kenny G. That's not to say all or even most white artists were doing that shyt, because there are plenty who were respected at the time (Chuck Mangione, John McLaughlin, etc).
Sade's sound is exactly the type of shyt older black people have listened to since the mid 1970s. If you were a 40yo black person in 1977 you probably weren't listening to disco like that...you were listening to George Benson type shyt.
And nobody gives a shyt if her band had white people in it. Just like black people didn't give a shyt that Michael McDonald was white. Or Bobby Caldwell, who most people assumed was black lol. Or Hall & Oates who were staples on black radio programming at the time.
Notice how smooth that shyt is? This is the type of shyt black grandmas, aunts, and uncles bump. And if you can't see why Sade, Al Jarreau, and similar artists are beloved by black people you haven't been to a black cookout or family reunion.
My goat poster !
