Musiq Soulchild. "Just Friends (Sunny)." Aijuswanaseing, Mercury Records Limited, 2000.
I love taking road trips because it means I get to dig around in my high school CD case, which lives in our car, and travel back in time when I play DJ. Those of you who've known me since high school can imagine that I was pretty stoked this weekend when I remembered Aijuswanaseing was in that case.
I remember when I first saw Musiq Soulchild perform -- it was on BET's "106th & Park" with AJ and Free (yes, I, like most teenage girls back in the late 90s / early 2000s, had a serious crush on AJ) -- and I was instantly hooked by his smooth vocals and modern take on soul music. (There I'm talking about Musiq Soulchild again, not AJ.)
This song has been a karaoke favourite over the past couple of decades, and I even saw Common perform it when he was in San Francisco earlier this year, but the original is still my favourite.