KIPPER JONES/Tease
Underrated Black Singers: Someone I once knew who used to work for a music publishing company told me when Kipper Jones would come by and sing material for them everyone in the office was left mesmerized.Kipper’s entrance into the industry was with a group called Tease (Chuckii Booker was once a member as well). Tease was sort of a TIME spinoff but with different material, probably pressured by Epic records at the time to emulate the Time which was a mistake.The group’s most notable hits were “Firestarter” and “I Wish You Were Here” both nothing less than stellar songs but there are times when groups get caught up in industry trends or the previous BS politics of radio.After TEASE split, Jones went solo and did an album for Virgin as well as spending a lot of his time producing hits and working with other artists and building their musical careers like Brandy and Vanessa Williams.There was certainly a bigger place waiting in the wings for his own career. Early 90s radio was loaded with New Jack Swing which put many balladeers on the back burner until the trend finally died down. Jones currently lives in Atlanta where he is still performing. Here’s the audio/video for Firestarterhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKQjBaOAzb4
