Slique - Rhythm & Ghetto Soul (2009)

If there is such a thing as greasy, Southern fried soul, Slique's debut certainly qualifies; but interestingly enough, that turns out to be a good thing. The aptly-titled album has plenty of rhythm and is plenty ghetto, but it's also exceptionally well sung and produced in a neo-urban tradition that made steady fans of artists like Tyrese, Urban Mystic, Jagged Edge and Calvin Richardson. Slique brings his throaty A-Game to a rhapsodic cover of Bobby Womack's "A Woman's Got To Have It," making me a believer. The pulsating "Your Body" is already a deserving club and radio hit for Chicago's stepper's set.  Still, I'd place my money on the booty-bouncing "Got It For Me" as a sleeper summer hit if there were still any independent radio programmers out there to be found. I'm not sure if this rock-solid debut from Chi-town's latest churchy thug will make him the heir apparent to R. Kelly's ghetto soul kingdom, but it certainly puts Slique credibly in line for its ostentatious throne.