Smooth Operator and The Sweetest Taboo (Sade) - Sensing an opportunity brewing, the doe-eyed Sade (née Helen Folasade Adu) was clever enough to take up the slack in the music charts, and subsequently steamrolled her way past the competition during the latter half of the eighties and early nineties, with her perfunctory vocal style and smoke-gets-in-your-eyes delivery.

She earns a space on the shelves of smooth-jazz collectors, for her infectious chartbuster ("No need to ask"), the knockout number "Smooth Operator," from her smash debut album Diamond Life (CBS Portrait/Sony, 1984), alongside such showstoppers as "Your Love is King" and "Hang On to Your Love."


In a similar vein, there's Promise from 1985 (CBS Portrait/Sony), featuring the serpentine-like "The Sweetest Taboo," a cut that solidified her hold on Latin-music lovers and other romantics. Though her voice is closer to the cool side of jazz than to straight-up bossa nova ("Ice Queen" is the phrase most associated with her persona), the former model-turned-pop-diva was inspired by no less than Billie Holiday and Nina Simone, with a smattering of Astrud Gilberto's breathless naiveté thrown in for good measure. It's a style that Suzanne Vega has also cultivated, to an extent - not bad for non-natives. (text by a naturalized American citizen born in Brazil, Joe Lopes)