Artist

Jodeci

Charlotte, United States • Formed 1990

Jodeci is a music group from Charlotte, United States, active since 1990. Their discography on Gatefold includes 10 records.

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Albums tracked

In collections

1990

Since

Biography

Jodeci is an American musical group, active from 1990 to 1996, whose repertoire included R&B, soul music, and new jack swing. The group consisted of two pairs of brothers from Charlotte, North Carolina: the DeGrates (Donald "DeVante Swing" DeGrate, the group founder/leader, and Dalvin DeGrate) and the Haileys (main lead singer Cedric "K-Ci" Hailey and second lead singer Joel "Jo-Jo" Hailey). The group's name is a combination of the names of its members: Jo-Jo, DeVante and Dalvin, and K-Ci.

The Arc of Jodeci

The pivots — what forced Jodeci to reinvent.

The Uptown Dawn
For the 1991 debut Forever My Lady, Al B. Sure! was brought in to co-produce, but it was DeVante Swing who quietly drove the bus by layering heavy New Jack Swing drum patterns under traditional gospel harmonies. They recorded the album in New York with cheap gear, pushing the vocals to the absolute front of the mix. You hear it on the title track and 'Come and Talk to Me,' where the pristine, church-honed vocal arrangements clash with raw, unpolished hip-hop drum tracks. It was a calculated risk by Andre Harrell to market them as bad boys, and it paid off immediately by dragging R&B out of the adult-contemporary charts.
The Basement of the Mad Band
By 1993, DeVante locked the group inside a Rochester, New York studio to cut Diary of a Mad Band, fueled by frustration with Uptown Records and a desire for total sonic control. He banned outside musicians, played almost all the instruments himself, and started experimenting with live basslines, wah-wah guitars, and weird, off-kilter swing tempos. This is where he birthed the Swing Mob collective, introducing a young Missy Elliott, Timbaland, and Ginuwine to the sessions as writers and assistant producers. The resulting record is darker, weirder, and far more psychedelic, defined by the blistering vocal runs on 'Cry for You' and the loose, late-night jam-session energy of 'Feenin'.
The Death Row Hangover
The Show, The After Party, The Hotel in 1995 was recorded in Los Angeles while DeVante was deep in the orbit of Suge Knight and Death Row Records. The clean-cut gospel boys were gone, replaced by a paranoid, hazy, and highly explicit double-album concept that reflected their chaotic lifestyle. They relied heavily on live instrumentation, acoustic guitars, and thick G-funk basslines, with DeVante channeling Prince-style arrangements and solo work. You can hear the exhaustion and the shifting tides in K-Ci's raspy, raw delivery on 'Love U 4 Life' right before the group dissolved into a twenty-year hiatus.

Influences

The Winans — Before Jodeci, the Hailey brothers toured the gospel circuit as Little Rusty and the Gospel Singing Hailey Brothers, heavily studying the modern vocal arrangements of Detroit's Winans family. You hear this influence in the complex, tight four-part harmony stacks Jodeci used on 'Stay.' They took the Winans' contemporary gospel phrasing and substituted secular, bedroom lyrics over the top.
Bobby Womack — K-Ci Hailey has repeatedly cited Bobby Womack as his ultimate vocal blueprint, mimicking Womack's gritty, throat-shredding soul delivery. This raw, unpolished rasp is the centerpiece of 'Cry for You.' Instead of the polite crooning typical of late-80s R&B, K-Ci brought Womack's pain and gravel to the bedroom ballad.
Prince — DeVante Swing was a noted Prince obsessive, playing multiple instruments in the studio and adopting Prince's signature style of blending synth-pop with raw funk. On the track 'Feenin',' DeVante plays a skeletal, Prince-inspired guitar line and a moody synthesizer patch that directly mirrors the minimalist arrangement of 'Sign o' the Times.' He even wore Prince-style outfits during the 'Diary' era.
Guy — Teddy Riley's group Guy invented the New Jack Swing template that Jodeci initially stepped into on their 1991 debut. Jodeci used the same SP-1200 drum programming techniques and aggressive snare snaps that Riley perfected on Guy's self-titled 1988 debut. DeVante simply slowed Riley's uptempo dance rhythms down to a grinding, slow-jam pace.
The Clark Sisters — The Hailey brothers and DeVante Swing grew up on the legendary Detroit gospel group's vocal gymnastics, particularly their pioneering use of melisma and vocal runs. You can hear the dramatic, operatic vocal hand-offs and high-register belts of the Clark Sisters in the climax of 'I'm Still Waiting.' It is straight Church of God in Christ vocal technique applied to secular slow jams.