Once upon a time, there was a woman with a voice that sounded like…intimacy and all kinds of it. Morning intimacy, afternoon intimacy, late night…you get the picture. Her voice sounded like raw love in a way that we really hadn’t heard before. And what was even more fascinating was this same woman became a pop star.
On March 20, 1986, Anita Baker dropped her second album, Rapture. Soon after the album’s release, it became a smash, selling five million records in the United States and eight million units worldwide. Now, you can obviously see why I wrote this piece. The 40th anniversary of this album’s release is this week. But, there are two other reasons.
Reason #2 is the fact that Baker became a crossover star. In the 1980s, Black stars had to have a ‘hook’ to cross from Black radio to mainstream airwaves. Another young Black woman singer (more about her in a few more paragraphs) was also doing major damage on pop radio in ‘86, and she had a definite hook. Baker really didn’t have one. There was an air of mystery about her, and she looked almost ethereal in some of her music videos. But she had no real physical/style edge.
But, her voice was so unique it just cut through. Baker’s tone was unusually low for a woman, but not shockingly so. And it was powerful but beautiful…elegant. And the songs she sang fit her sonics. “Sweet Love” and “Caught Up In The Rapture" had enough musical sophistication to enchant adults with their jazzy and sultry arrangements, and just enough funk and charm to interest young people. It actually wasn’t unusual during the album’s peak for a mother and her daughter to request Rapture songs to play on the radio the same day.
The third reason for this essay on Rapture is because Baker became a star the same time another Midwestern-born (Baker was born in Toledo) Black woman was tearing up Billboard’s charts, Janet Jackson (born in Gary, Indiana). For Baker to have her own rampage on the same airwaves was and is a big deal because Baker wasn’t ‘built’ to be a pop star the way Janet was. Jackson was a dancing, singing, camera-winking phenomenon who was primed to dominate American pop culture. Baker was a songstress in the vein of Nancy Wilson who still carved out her own considerable space on the cultural landscape. For Baker to exist and compete side by side with a white-hot Jackson in ‘86 was a massive feat.
I could list a fourth reason, and I will. Rapture became an eternal staple for Black America. This album has gotten play at Black BBQs since its debut. You will hear both singles from this album, or the entire album played at somebody’s Black function this summer. If not…don’t eat their potato salad.
