Rediscovered: Maxwell’s 'Urban Hang Suite’

Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite is the rare classic that never sounds like it was intended to be earth-shaking. The debut album from the Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter Gerald Maxwell Rivera, known worldwide as simply Maxwell, is a proclamation of creative purpose and a testament to the progressive power of tapping into the richness of music’s past. Immediately hailed as a scion of Marvin Gaye, Maxwell would see critical acclaim thrust him into the epicenter of an emerging new sound in Black music, and his influence has reverberated in the decades since Urban Hang Suite was released 30 years ago.

When “Til the Cops Come Knockin’” was released in spring 1996, Maxwell was still something of a mystery to listeners and critics. The single was hailed but not a monster hit, a smoldering bedroom track co-written with the inimitable Hod David, who would become a fixture on Maxwell projects. But he became a word-of-mouth sensation, despite most people not really knowing much about his background.  His father died in a plane crash when he was three. He knew his upbringing wasn’t ideal. 

“I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me. I felt transformed through this music thing,” he would explain in 2016. “It was like I finally felt good about myself. That’s why I didn’t really connect myself with the energy people gave me onstage back then. It was like, This is happening... but, really? Because most people grow up with parents and family that really love them and nurture them to the point where they believe the world revolves around them. I didn’t really have that.”

Released in the summer, “Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder)” fared better than “...Cops” commercially, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard R&B Chart and No. 36 on the Hot 100. He was starting to catch fire amongst fans of R&B and hip-hop, and rock critics were beginning to fawn over …Urban Hang Suite, as well. The “critical darling” tag can be a gift and a curse, but for Maxwell, it seemed to fit without a snag. “Ascension” was co-written with Itaal Shur, and boasted a breezy percussiveness that made it a mid-tempo dance fixture. 

Urban Hang Suite melds the groovalicious downtown New York City sounds of the early-to-mid 1990s club scene with something that is entirely Brooklyn and reaches back to the earthy soul sounds of 20 years earlier. In bringing together those worlds, Maxwell was suddenly centered in the burgeoning “neo-soul” movement, a cadre of acclaimed artists who would soon become famous for bringing the artistic and aesthetic tropes of 70s soul/jazz fusion into a post-Native Tongues landscape. 

So much of the album’s groove comes courtesy of Stuart Matthewman, writer/producer/multi-instrumentalist of Sade fame. He worked closely with Maxwell on the project, and would remain a part of the star’s subsequent releases. The same seductive swing that drives much of Sade’s sound is found throughout Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite, perhaps best showcased on “Ascension…”

The other key ingredient to the secret sauce of …Urban Hang Suite is the genius of none other than Leon Ware. The man who’d collaborated with Marvin Gaye and produced/arranged seminal projects like I Want You would provide a direct and spiritual connection to the era that inspired so much of …Urban Hang Suite. While the Hod-assisted “dancewitme” lyrically evokes that classic Gaye album; it’s the gorgeous and timeless “Sumthin,’ Sumthin’” that is co-written by Ware, and most directly and seamlessly recalls the beauty and power of Marvin at the peak of his classic soul period. Punctuated with percussive claps and the gooiest of basslines, it’s one of the best songs in Maxwell’s extensive discography and one of the defining R&B/soul songs of the period. 

Becoming a dancefloor mainstay at the tail end of 1996, the release of “Sumthin,’ Sumthin’” also cemented the slow build that Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite would enjoy throughout that year. He was now a bonafide musical sensation heading into 1997, a herald of a new sound that was set to rearrange R&B. 

And he was a bonafide sex symbol. 

“At the time, I struggled with why it was happening to me,” he recalled to Interview magazine back in 2022. “Obviously, I credit the music as an amazing elixir. It creates all kinds of things in people’s minds and hearts. But yeah, I still struggle a lot. I wonder why certain things are happening. I hope it has to do with contributing to my community, and then hopefully my personality to a degree, but it’s hard to know for sure what makes people appreciate what you do.”

In early 1996, R&B’s mainstream still seemed to be somewhat neatly divided between the slickly polished urban contemporary sounds of artists like Boyz II Men, Toni Braxton and Mint Condition; and the grittier, edgier look and feel of hip-hop soul a la Mary J. Blige, Jodeci and H-Town. But D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar had fired a proverbial shot through Black popular music in mid-1995; that landmark debut seemed to herald the ascension of a wave that had been hinted at on projects like Groove Theory’s eponymous 1995 debut and Tony! Toni! Toné’s Sons Of Soul album from 1993. With Urban Hang Suite, in addition to announcing himself as an artist, Maxwell affirmed that Brown Sugar was no musical fluke–it was a harbinger. 

The lilting, breathy “Whenever, Wherever, Whatever” seemed to convey a vulnerability that made Maxwell seem akin to soul’s Jeff Buckley; and while it was too convenient to market him as the sensitive boho counterpart of D’Angelo’s Timbs-sporting street romantic, there was a draw to seeing the two as pillars of this oncoming soul revival. Erykah Badu’s Baduizm would soon join the conversation, and neo-soul would become firmly entrenched in the lexicon on the heels of a string of classic releases. 

But where early D’Angelo was smooth-but-gritty and Badu embraced the esoteric, Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite was optimally sensual music. For anyone who may have found Brown Sugar more attuned to long rides with your lady, the I Want You-esque grooves of …Hang Suite was undeniably suitable for more intimate settings. The album crests into its most seductively smooth crescendo with “Lonely’s The Only Company (I&II)”, a saxophone-laden ballad that serves as a musical centerpiece. And the pulsing “Proposal Jam” is a perfect rechanneling of 70s lust over a sumptuous groove that may feature the best bassline on the entire album. 

The smooth and slightly psychedelic affectations of Maxwell’s debut album would prove to be a touchstone for artists to reference over the coming decades. You can hear Urban Hang Suite thirty years later–in the sounds of a wide array of artists from Jhene Aiko to The Weeknd. 

Not unlike “grunge” or “gangsta rap,” that term “neo-soul” has always been hackneyed and uncomfortable; and more often than not in recent years–quite dated. Raphael Saddiq’s recent dismissal of the term wholesale is understandable–artists are never going to embrace superficial boxes as descriptors for their art and artistry. But it should be agreed that a new approach was rising to the fore circa 1996. In R&B, (and in hip-hop with artists like A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots, J Dilla, etc.) a certain sensibility was becoming prominent and it was reshaping the future by connecting with the past. It was Roy Ayers with Timberlands on. It was Stevie Wonder at a Mobb Deep show. And Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite was proof that it was about to change everything.