A Grammy Award-winning soul singer with over 25 years in the game, Anthony Hamilton is a joy to talk to. Speaking to me via Zoom from Charlotte, North Carolina, where he lives with three of his six children, Hamilton is calm, considered, and looking impeccably suave for the environs of his home office.
Like many soul music greats, Hamilton honed his musical skills in the Black church. Though his debut album XTC (1996) failed to make much impact, Hamilton found himself on tour with D’Angelo in 2000 as a backing singer. After providing guest vocals on several hip-hop tracks, Hamilton broke through with his sophomore album Comin’ From Where I’m From (2003). The album cracked the top 40 of the Billboard album charts and garnered Hamilton four Grammy nominations. (Hamilton has 17 Grammy nominations in total, winning an award for Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance in 2008 for ‘You’ve Got The Love I Need’, a swampy duet with Al Green.)
Perhaps inevitably, we begin by discussing the current pandemic – a conversational glue that connects even lowly journalists with Grammy-winning soul singers. Hamilton and his family were all unfortunate enough to contract the coronavirus. “I was in hospital for 2 weeks; I hadn’t been sick in 10-15 years. When I got it, [I thought] ‘okay this is really real,’” Hamilton tells me, revealing also that he was given oxygen at one point. Nervous about the potential impact of the virus on his rich, raspy vocals, he tested out his voice on his signature tune. “It was one quiet night laying in there. I just started singing ‘Charlene’ really softly… I can still sing it!’ He jokes that, if he were to ever exclude ‘Charlene’ from a live set, “there’s gonna be cans of tomatoes thrown on stage.”
Despite his stint in hospital, Hamilton endured the pandemic relatively unscathed. “The beginning of the pandemic was a much-needed holiday for me. I took it as a vacation to regroup, but then it became a little too long, just worrying about being healthy and what to do, making sure that in the pandemic we don’t lose sight musically where things were going.” He explains that, in the solitude of the pandemic, he turned to the comforting sounds of old-school soul, often tuning into DJ D-Nice’s ‘Club Quarantine’ on Instagram Live. “He played all the oldies, all the soul. Those old vibes got me through.”
Our conversation turns to the wider soul music landscape. Hamilton remains optimistic that soul artists can still break through in today’s climate. Referencing Silk Sonic’s storming success with ‘Leave The Door Open’ – their Delfonics-esque, harmony-laden ballad – Hamilton notes how many elements of soul music still resonate with audiences today. He celebrates some of the distinct voices in contemporary soul, giving praise to Ledisi, Jazmine Sullivan, and Gregory Porter, but also newer artists like Giveon (“He has a really different voice, I love it”) and H.E.R.
In his appearance on Michelle Williams’ Checking In podcast earlier this year, Hamilton discussed his own voice and his initial reticence to fully embrace its gritty texture as smoother, melismatic vocal groups like Jodeci, Guy, and SWV dominated the 1990s. “They did more acrobatic stuff in their voices… I didn’t have that; I tried it but it wasn’t me. I would overthink things and try things which weren’t necessarily ‘Anthony,’” he tells me.
We turn to Hamilton’s new music. Earlier this year, he released the single ‘You Made a Fool of Me’. With vocal nods to Lenny Williams, Hamilton relays the pain of being deceived and betrayed by a lover. “I also want to say it’s not my fault this time, dang it!” he jokes in the accompanying press release, poking fun at his back catalogue wherein his own romantic misdemeanours are captured. In addition to its emotional lyrics and anguished delivery, ‘You Made a Fool of Me’ excited Hamilton’s fan base as its music video featured the surprising re-appearance of the actress who played Charlene in that song’s video over 20 years prior. Hamilton explains: “Once the song came out, now it was time to think about the video [and I thought ] ‘it would be nice to find her and see what’s going on with her, what’s happening in her life.’ I’m glad we found her!”
Hamilton has recently released his seventh studio album, Love is the New Black – the follow-up to 2016’s What I’m Feelin’. He describes his raw, impassioned approach: “Got a little bit of weight on this: I’m doing some things with my voice, more of a big open chest and open throat voice, almost like a Rick James or Jeffrey Osbourne, with a few falsettos in there,” he says. I ask Hamilton whether the pandemic stifled his creativity. “It gave me more to write about, more gratitude,” he responds. “We had a surge of racial tension here which was pretty bad. I wrote a few songs dealing with that. That had my heart pretty heavy. I wrote through it, sang through it.”
He speaks passionately about Love is the New Black, which features four songs produced by his long-term collaborator Jermaine Dupri and a song produced by Rick Ross. He also duets with Jennifer Hudson on a swooning cover of ‘Superstar’ (popularised by The Carpenters and later by Luther Vandross). Lyrically, the album explores the vicissitudes of Hamilton’s romantic life, but also his response to the murder of George Floyd and the incendiary politics of race in the US – expressed powerfully in ‘Mercy’, a politically-charged anthem featuring a rousing spoken-word from activist Tamika D. Mallory. The accompanying music video counterposes images of the Civil Rights Movement with those of the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020. ‘It’s pretty hard to be a Black man in America, and sometimes that strong man who’s always secure – the backbone of the family – needs a moment to rest and to be loved on,” Hamilton explains. He also highlights the song ‘Safe’, ‘about taking your family back from crime, from the streets, from hurt.” He privileges me by singing a snippet of the song down our Zoom call.
I bring the conversation to a close by selfishly asking when Hamilton will next be in London. “I’m challenging all you promoters out there. I don’t come enough! I want to be there more often,” he responds, mentioning the various restaurants he wants to visit. Nando’s sits at the top of the list.
Twenty-five years since his debut album, Hamilton shows no signs of letting up. “I’m still hungry now,” he says. “I’m challenging myself and challenging my listeners to grow with me.”
Anthony Hamilton’s latest album Love is the New Black is out now.
