Tomorrow (June 21) marks the official launch of Queer Issue 2017, The Stranger’s biggest issue of the year. Its focus is as much about what it means to be queer in modern America (the theme is “My First Time…”) as it is about the people who are experiencing it and telling their stories (we have a total of 17 essays to share). The rest of the Queer Issue content focuses on queer artists and subject matter; this piece shines a light on Seattle-based R&B/rap mistress SassyBlack.
“They call me Sassy, Ms. Black if ya nasty.” —”Watching You”
SassyBlack wants to take you on a trip on her latest album, New Black Swing (out June 23). Maybe not down memory lane, but through a living exhibition of the mechanics of a gone but not forgotten era of R&B. Running from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, new jack swing, the stylistic reference point for New Black Swing, stepped away from the softer love-ballad vibes of the early 1980s (think 1983 Lionel Richie or early New Edition), thickened the sexual overtones, and added the aggressive hiphop percussion that American dance floors of the time craved (think 1986 Janet Jackson or late-1980s Bell Biv DeVoe and Bobby Brown).