Koncert Review: Jazmine Sullivan Rocks Kings Theatre, Brooklyn, NY

Some say that the Irish are inherently lucky.  Maybe that’s how I scored a ticket to the hottest show in town on the evening of St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2022.

Playing a sold-out concert at Kings Theatre, Jazmine Sullivan performed to a captivated audience of 3,000. Sullivan last headlined a tour in 2015. Her NYC appearance that year was at Grammercy Theatre, holding less than a quarter of the capacity as the Brooklyn venue. The demand is evidence that Sullivan is starting to receive the appropriate attention for her work, a major contribution to the music industry.

Just over the last decade, the Philly native racked up an impressive fifteen Grammy nominations. In 2022, she was up for Best R&B Performance, Best R&B Song for “Pick Up Your Feelings” and Best R&B Album for Heaux Tales, her latest release from early 2021 expanded to the deluxe edition last month: Heaux Tales, Mo’ Tales for which she received her first two gramophones. In her acceptance speech for Best R&B Album, Sullivan said the endeavor became “a safe space for Black women to tell their stories, for us to learn from each other, laugh with each other, and not be exploited.” The album is a collection of profiles, of mostly experiences by women of color contending with the many causes of heartbreak including breakups, infidelity, and rejection. With this album, Sullivan has curated content that a TED Talk could never.

Short stories interlude between songs, each one a character study of low self-image, the lived experience of social class and classism-based trauma, sexuality, and feminist perspective. Vignettes of dramatic monologue and informal conversation between the women is candid, imbuing the subjects represented in each song.

As the theatre lights dimmed, the audience’s first peek into the world of Sullivan’s live show began with a video wall that formed a threshold. A montage of glamourous images played before the songster arrived in a lustrous sheen of soft purple: trench coat, bodysuit and aura.

Gotta stop getting fucked up
What did I have in my cup?
I don’t know where I woke up
I keep on pressing my luck
I don’t know where I woke up

Bitch, get it together bitch
You don’t know who you went home with

The large chorus of concertgoers sang along, word for word, to “Bodies,” the intro song on Sullivan’s EP. She followed up with a couple of songs from her previous albums before returning to recent selections like “Put It Down,” “Price Tags,” “Roster,” and “Girl Like Me.” She sang more favorites and deep cuts from her lengthy career, “Lost One” and “In Love with Another Man.” At this most emotional part of her concert, uplifted phones waved by the audience, their screens and flashes providing vigil light. It was a visual depiction of what devoted fans have been saying all year long of the leading vocalist: Jazmine Sullivan is finally getting her flowers.

There are remaining dates for the Heaux Tales Tour before Sullivan joins a number of musical festival lineups this summer.