Here we have a somber new jam from neo-retro R&B auteur Raheem Devaughn, featuring a little rhyming assist from Ludacris.
"Bulletproof" is a mournful track, which has climbed to 46 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart and comes from Devaughn's upcoming Love & War Masterpeace. It's an elegant elegy for generations of inner-city youth living and dying by the gun, while also throwing some shade at politicians who only care about money.
The track samples the Curtis Mayfield song, "The Other Side Of Town," and acts, on a whole, as an homage to Mayfield's socially-conscious brand of 70's soul music.
It's very much in line with Devaughn's aesthetic. The Washington, D.C. (by way of Newark, New Jersey), has made three albums of lush, gorgeous R&B heavily influenced by the likes of Mayfield, Donny Hathaway and Marvin Gaye, while incorporating a modern, hip-hop-influenced edge (he's worked with hard-nosed MC's like Scarface and Beanie Sigel).
Watch Raheem DeVaughn's "Bulletproof" video now.