“They call me MR. Poitier.”

Throughout life, I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the films of the great Caribbean-born actor Sidney Poiter. Now a sturdy 90 years young, the iconic thespian’s most famous movies, the ones I used to enjoy on television as a child, featured an actor whom you couldn’t take your eyes off of yet his performances seemed to be indictments not of the black experience, but the white one.

Whether it be Lilies In The Field,  In The Heat Of The Night, or Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, Poitier characters were the sole black face of any significance:  the tragic negro who was simply a conduit for the white characters’ social conscience.  Even though his very presence was important to me, the fact that a black star could even exist that wasn’t a stereotype, the fact that he seemed super-human and a righteously perfect made me think Hollywood used Poitier to trot out & herald its half-ass liberalism which finally made  him less a person than an idea. He was certainly unlike any black man I ever knew. 

Still, over the years I came to appreciate the man for his dignity and the academy award winning quality of his performances and the dynamism . – He was just always fascinating to watch.  Over the years as he became more powerful, Poitier because he began different kinds of roles, including romantic dramas that made him seem more accessible as a human being, as well as taking on a career as a successful director.

Sade Adu

I remember walking down the street with a friend in 1984 and seeing the cover of Diamond Life, Sade’s first album, in a record store window (remember those?). It resembled a  ‘50’S LP cover, with its blue tinted photograph a beautiful, sensuous woman. My companion remarked, “If she has a voice that matches that face, she’s got something there.”

Sure enough, weeks later we heard a lovely, burning tune on the radio - the first single off that album, “Smooth Operator”.  We could now match the face with music. And now, we had a name: Sade (pronounced, of course shar-day).

Being jazz heads, we weren’t fooling ourselves that this cool, suave pop star was an bondafide jazz singer, but she had a slick sound that suggested the sophisticated feeling of the music without the improvisational aspects that exemplify the music. She was probably one of the first truly successful smooth jazz artists.

Sade and her crack band weren’t a flash in the pan. The quietly innovative group expanded and worked with its signature sound expertly over the years until their last smash album, Soldier Of Love in 2010.

African British Helen Folasade Adu (her real name) is the very definition of diva, rarely retuning to the stage or recording studio until she sees fit, but always finds generations a eager fans who are always willing to hear more.