Music
Mint Condition's Fine Form at Birchmere
Lead singer Stokley Williams scoped out the venue grub during the show.
(By Katina Revels -- Detroit Free Press Via Ap)
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Even without the support of a major label, the men of Mint Condition are still capable of making very fine music, as evidenced by their Birchmere show on Wednesday evening. Lead vocalist Stokley Williams and crew are currently promoting "E-Life," an independent album released last month that hit No. 8 on Billboard's Top Hip-Hop/R&B Albums chart.
Still, while group members talked about the sweetness of success gained without corporate backing and new "E-Life" tracks such as "Goldigger" and "Baby Boy Baby Girl" went over well, Mint Condition will always be defined by their string of hit '90s R&B ballads.
The band's fierce, sweat-inducing work on songs such as "Someone to Love," "So Fine" and "U Send Me Swingin' " transported the audience back to the mid-'90s, when the group's funk, soul and jazz instrumentals, mixed with grown-up lyrics about love, frequently served as background music for what folks used to refer to as "booty calls."
Although a Mint Condition show would be incomplete without the syrupy, heart-on-sleeve show-closers "Breakin' My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes)" and "What Kind of Man Would I Be?," the band put in its most vibrant work on a super-duper extended version of "Forever in Your Eyes" that lived up to the song's title. It stretched on for so long that bass player Ricky Kinchen sat down on the stage while Williams walked through the venue, sang a bit, scoped out the food being served, commented "Damn, I'm hungry," then decided to scat for a couple of minutes -- all before getting to the song's bridge.
-- Sarah Godfrey
