Wonderful stuff, produced by the king of UK soul Omar.

If you think you've heard that bassline recently in another song, this is probably why:

It sure ain't cool that they've removed all the comments that say where the bassline originally comes from.

I still don't get why Mica never blew up stateside

scriptgirl said:

I still don't get why Mica never blew up stateside

I never quite understood that either. Maybe a combination of poor management and lack of domestic promotion from her record company. The musical landscape in the U.S. was beginning to change when she hit the scene. The public was starting to lean more towards Janet Jackson/Paula Abdul type singers and that could have been another problem for her. She did some incredible songs, this being one of them (I believe this particular song was a b-side non-album cut for one of her singles). The "Black Angel" CD, which was never released in the United States, remains her crowning glory, IMO.

[Edited 12/17/12 6:36am]

What year did she come out?

I believe her debut album was released in the states in 1988. Not sure how long it had been out in the U.K.

kitbradley said:

scriptgirl said:

I still don't get why Mica never blew up stateside

I never quite understood that either. Maybe a combination of poor management and lack of domestic promotion from her record company. The musical landscape in the U.S. was beginning to change when she hit the scene. The public was starting to lean more towards Janet Jackson/Paula Abdul type singers and that could have been another problem for her. She did some incredible songs, this being one of them (I believe this particular song was a b-side non-album cut for one of her singles). The "Black Angel" CD, which was never released in the United States, remains her crowning glory, IMO.

[Edited 12/17/12 6:36am]

I seem to recall she had a lot of difficulty with finding her audience, partly due to having a label that didn't quite know what to do with her. When she moved away from the light soul-pop of her first album and tried to position herself as a sort of credible, urban artist on her second album - the fantastic, Nellee Hooper-produced If I Love U 2Nite announcing what she was going for perfectly - they didn't seem to know how to market it and it bombed. After that, they pushed her as a sort of MOR Anita Baker-type singer (with glossy Narada Michael Walden/Rod Temperton songs), which all seemed a bit half-hearted, and probably disappointed the crowd who'd really connected with what she was trying to do on Contribution.

Like you say, though, she came back hard on Black Angel - also my favourite - and I do remember hearing those singles, but it seemed by then that she'd missed her moment. I noticed she'd done soul covers album a few years back, which I took as a pretty grim sign of the state of her music career. Shame, as she's one of the best singers that ever came out of the UK's black music scene, for my money.

I thought "Contribution", the first single from her second album, was a great choice for an lead single. And Rakim added the perfect touch to it! I knew it was going to be a big hit the first time I heard it. I thought it was simply brilliant! I was really disappointed when it got virtually no support here in the states. I recall seeing the videos a couple of times on BET but no radio play. I guess since New Jack Swing was all the rage by then, the positive lyric just didn't go over too well with the U.S. record buying public.