The Masterpeace of Raheem DeVaughn

Last Sunday marked the 376th day of Barack Obama's presidency, and if you're still holding onto the illusion of a "post-racial America", Raheem DeVaughn has some slap-in-the-face R&B anthems he'd like you to hear.

The Washington-based singer is lounging in the control room of Phase, a recording studio in southern Maryland, mulling over cuts from The Love and War Masterpeace, his eccentrically titled new album due in March. The disc will be the Grammy-nominated singer's third for Jive Records and his most political yet, balancing bedroom candle burners with streetwise protest songs.

Much of Masterpeace was penned before Obama had announced his candidacy for the presidency, but DeVaughn says the album's themes have no expiration date. "Racism is very prevalent and alive... in this country and in this world," he says, swiveling in his chair.

"I feel like we'll forever live in a country that's divided... Divided by race... Divided by love and hate."

Carrying two worlds

The studio speakers erupt with a fiery tune called Revelations 2010, and DeVaughn rises to his feet as if he can't take these lyrics sitting down. "There's a war going on no man is safe from," he declares on the track, his pillowy falsetto now howling like an angry tea kettle.

Next, DeVaughn cues up Bedroom, a song as salacious as its title suggests. Those steamy high notes come floating back, airy and supple, high-hat cymbals panting along.

DeVaughn carries these two worlds, outrage and sensuality, in his pocket with an ease that would seem radical were it not so done so famously by his forebears, Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield. But DeVaughn sees himself as more of a 21st century utility player than a throwback.

"It's about being diverse," he says, citing the hook he recently recorded for rapper Ghostface Killah and the album he's currently producing for Bootsy Collins, legendary bassist of Parliament-Funkadelic.

Bulletproof, the first single from Masterpeace, captures DeVaughn's transgenerational approach, combining vintage, hot-buttered horns, dire lyrical warnings ("Politicians can't help you") and a guest verse from rapper Ludacris.

The single has been well received, but the album was still a hard sell at Jive. So in the throes of self-doubt, DeVaughn called his most famous admirer, Stevie Wonder. Turns out, Wonder actually had troubles pitching his legendary double album Songs in the Key of Life to Motown back in the '70s.

Wonder told DeVaughn that he eventually won the label brass over by playing his magnum opus for them with the lights off. His advice to DeVaughn, more than 30 years later: "You have to draw people into your world."

For DeVaughn, that means asking listeners to take a hard look at their own.