Raheem DeVaughn is one of those artists that are so underrated that some people may have forgot that he’s still around, that is if the haven’t forgotten who he is. But fortunately, he has reminded us with his sophomore album, Love Behind The Melody, that debuted at number 1 on the Hip/R’B Billboard charts and number 5 on the Top 200 Albums chart. Three years have past since his debut album, The Love Experience (2005), but he has still managed to keep his sound and not get caught up in the hype of what is now considered to be R’B. The first single off this album is the already Grammy Nominated radio hit,”Woman,” and that song doesn’t even compare to the rest of the album. Love Behind The Melody is a mix of so many different sounds and styles that it is hard to not find a song that you like. I would say that when you listen to this album you can hear a resemblance to artists like John Legend, Jaheim when he first came out, a tiny bit of Maxwell and Jamie Fox, a little bit of Jill Scott’s style on certain songs and a bit of an old school R’B sound on others. But on a lot of the songs he has somehow managed to sound like all of those sounds at once, something that’s not easy to do. Listening to the album all you hear are soulful meaningful lyrics with a mix of soothing and serene beats, especially on two of my favorite songs, track 12 “Butterflies” and track 16, “Empty”. Even his more up beat songs on the album like track 5, “Friday (Shut The Club Down),” where he sampled The Temptation’s “My Girl” and track 4, “Energy,” featuring Outcast’s Big Boi, have a laid back feel to them. This album doesn’t just display his vocal abilities, but it displays his talent for song writing as well. His lyrics don’t just bring out emotion in you, but they make his already strong beats come alive to a point where on some songs you feel them more than you do the actual lyrics. As with all albums, Love Behind The Melody has some songs that are better than others but as a whole I’d say that this 17-track disc is a good CD so much so that I was actually surprised. DeVaughn has proclaimed himself the “R’B -hippie- neo soul- rock star”, I’m not sure where he got the rock star part from but other than that I’d say that title describes his music perfectly. Over the years, the sound that was once R’B has slowly but surely disappeared. It was such a gradual change that most people didn’t even notice it until it was too late. Then one day we all woke up and hip-hop and R’B were just about the same thing. So it is a relief to know that there are still some artists that are trying to preserve the original sound of R’B and the dying sound of Neo Soul, Raheem DeVaughn is one of those artists.