Bryan James Sledge, who goes by the moniker BJ the Chicago Kid, has a soft, gentle voice, which is perfect for delivering multiple love letters. On In My Mind, his first major-label release, he doesn’t sing as much as he coos, adoringly, at the object of his affection, whose identity is renewed in each song. He might bring on current rappers like Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, and Big K.R.I.T., but the real wellspring of his inspiration is Chicago soul music, and on In My Mind he both honors and renews the classic form.
Tenderness is as inherent to Chicago soul music as the bass drop is to EDM, and BJ is surpassingly tender here, but that doesn't mean he's shy. Some of the tracks on In My Mind are so overtly sexual they could redden a teenager's ears. The adult and NSFW "Love Inside," for instance, is not about someone being beautiful on the inside, à la Bruno Mars. It is about uncensored intimacy, as is "Resume," "Church," "The New Cupid," "Woman’s World," "Heart Crush," and "Turnin’ Me Up". That’s almost half the album.
These songs represent the best of In My Mind. Sledge is in the zone when he’s singing to women, about women, and especially in praise of women, as he does on "Woman's World." A clever inversion of James Brown’s "It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World", the track features Sledge doing his best Smokey Robinson impression atop doo-wop tones and a frenetic, electronically rendered string section.
It’s one of the highlights on In My Mind, alongside "The New Cupid," in which Sledge laments what he sees as a lack of romance infecting his generation. Above a mellow sampling of Raphael Saadiq’s "Oh Girl," Sledge wonders where Cupid has gone, before ultimately deciding that he must be "too busy at the club." It’s up to Sledge, then, to play matchmaker, because "without a love song, something’s gonna go way wrong." Both in subject matter and style, the song is similar to fellow Chicagoans Carl Thomas’ stunning but slept on single, "Don’t Kiss Me," and R. Kelly’s saccharine "When a Woman Loves."
On "Turnin’ Me Up," Sledge enumerates the ways in which his lover satisfies his every need over an ever-thickening beat. On "Church," the woman Sledge adores is determined to ruin his Sunday. It’s Saturday night and she wants to "drink, do drugs, and have sex," and she doesn’t care that Sledge has to go to church in the morning. As Chance the Rapper says in his slick guest verse, "She always say, 'hey, I don’t wanna be saved.'" It's an interesting dynamic for a soul song: The woman is the protagonist, and the listener learns more about her likes and dislikes than Sledge’s. She is self-assured in her hedonism, happy to be the devil perched on Sledge’s quivering shoulder.
Sledge is a very straightforward lyricist; he doesn't stunt, he yearns. His lyrics favor plainspoken confessions over catchy turns of phrase, and when the album falters, it's because his words reduce a pair of lovers to their mouths and hands. Tracks like "Man Down" and "Crazy" make clear that Sledge is at his worst when he tries to reinvent the R&B wheel. He knows too well what goes into a great soul song to be able to dismember it. He’s too much of a traditionalist, stubborn in his devotion to Chicago soul music and its unpretentious approach to sex, love and everything that happens in between.
