With his tattoos, cornrows, and thug entourage, Jaheim looks tough, but musically he’s all about vulnerability, conjuring the spirit of Teddy Pendergrass and Luther Vandross without shying away from his abiding love of hip-hop. On the hit “Put That Woman First,” an adaptation of the classic William Bell slow jam “I Forgot to Be Your Lover,” he uses the same kind of absurdly prosaic style R. Kelly has turned into an art form to lament all the distractions that have kept him from showing his lover the proper respect. “If it wasn’t for the Sunday all-star weekend game, girl,” he croons, “I could remember.” Jaheim doesn’t alter the formula on his latest, Ghetto Classics (Warner Brothers), but he’s not always the repentant one either. On the amazing “Daddy Thing” he uses his lover’s child to express his romantic devotion, then elucidates the humiliation he feels when the father, freed “from a bid upstate,” threatens to reclaim his role.
