93 ’til Infinity: Did y’all realize Tevin Campbell was only 16 years old when ‘I’m Ready’ dropped?

OPINION: I feel like Tevin was too young to be singing the Prince-written and produced song, “Shhh.” The ’90s were wild.

Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

Let me start by saying that I realize being 16 years old in 1993 is different from being 16 in 2023, I think. I view it differently, at least. I also realize that being 16 as a successful, platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated R&B singer who has been in the spotlight since age 12 or 13 is also a world that I probably cannot fathom. And I further realize that in the case of Tevin Campbell, one of our marquee voices of the 1990s, he sounded so much older than he actually was that there was probably a bit of a balancing act for his production teams when it came to figuring out the right music for him since they had to find music that was … hmmm … appropriate for him to be singing while also making sure it was commercially viable to the adult set. 

All of those thoughts and more are what I’ve spent entirely too much time thinking about as I listen(ed) to Tevin Campbell’s sophomore album — and infinitely more successful album than his first — “I’m Ready,” which boasts hits like “Can We Talk,” “I’m Ready,” and “Always In My Heart.” With Quincy Jones — who produced Tevin’s first album, “T.E.V.I.N” — in charge and featuring production from heavyweights like Babyface and Prince, “I’m Ready” is an amazing work that highlights all of Tevin’s vocal strengths. It’s amazing to think that a 16-year-old kid (16 is definitely a kid) had such a powerful voice at that age and who could so effectively control his vocals. 

It’s similarly crazy to think that everybody in his orbit signed off on what would also be a single release in the song “Shhh,” a sensual, sexually charged, sack-romp written and produced by Prince, that I VIVIDLY remember trying to never play in front of my parents because it sounded like the soundtrack to all of the shows I had to sneak to watch like “Red Shoe Diaries.” In fact, while listening to the song as a 44-year-old adult, my mind went right back to those days as a 14-year-old, and I immediately started looking around to make sure my mother wasn’t about to walk in the room and ask me, very aggressively, “WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO?!” 

For context, that question would be odd considering that my family loved Tevin Campbell, and my parents absolutely bought “I’m Ready” for their own listening pleasure as late 30- and early 40-year-olds. Now, perhaps we’d already gone through this, and I just don’t remember; on Tevin’s debut album — which was released soon after he turned 15 in 1991 — there’s a whole song about Tevin suggesting that he can make an older girl scream and wondering why she won’t stop treating him like a little brother, called “Lil’ Brother.” In a bit of comedy, the woman who does the “rap” towards the end mentions that she needs a grown man who is at least 19. Oh, youth. 

I think, if anything, revisiting albums from the early ’90s reminds you just how different times were. And maybe I’m just not plugged into the music of the youth like I was back then, but I would be surprised if a major record company would release a song by a 16-year-old with simulated sex sounds on the actual record now, much less release it as a single. I do know that we had a fairly significant number of songs in the late ’80s and ’90s that mention things we would definitely cringe at now (or even prosecuted in the real world) so songs like “Shhh” and others are a time capsule to the life and times of the 1990s. 

With that said, I still love the song “Shhh” but have to remind myself that Tevin really was a child singing this song. As somebody with a 14-and-a-half-year-old, I can’t imagine my daughter singing a song even remotely as explicit as this song is; it’s not subtle in the slightest. Then again, as I said, Tevin Campbell being 16 might be more like him being 30 just because of what he’d seen, heard and experienced by that point in life. 

The ’90s were wild, yo.

Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio. He writes very Black things and drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest), but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said: “Unknown” (Blackest).

Make sure you check out the Dear Culture podcast every Thursday on theGrio’s Black Podcast Network, where I’ll be hosting some of the Blackest conversations known to humankind. You might not leave the convo with an afro, but you’ll definitely be looking for your Afro Sheen! Listen to Dear Culture on TheGrio’s app; download it here.

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