It has always been interesting to note how our neighbors across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans have, at many times, appreciated American music more than us ingrate Yankees. “Underground” hip hop artists go overseas to swarming fans fainting like they’re at an MJ concert or reciting every lyric to some obscure B-side like it’s a Top 40 smash hit. Jazz kats literally earn the bulk of the yearly wages gigging overseas, where jazz festivals are well-attended events that feature (gasp) jazz musicians, club owners put them up in swank hotels and club patrons actually (no!) enjoy the music and the snobbery attached to it. During the first half of the 1990s, one very interesting occurrence of these semi-phenomena took place.

Here in America, female pop stars and sexy male R&B groups ruled the landscape that made up black singing music. Mariah had a “Vision of Love” and Whitney was stretching her “I”s and Jodeci was “Feenin” and pre-solo R Kelly was with Public Announcement demanding some “Honey Love”. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with all that… even call it a heyday or Gen X nostalgia. But they don’t make R&B or pop like that anymore. See, the odd thing was that soul music was nowhere to be found. There were plenty Smokey Robinsons (relatively speaking), but no Stevie Wonders here on continental soil. ’Cross the Atlantic, you could find otherwise. There, in the UK, one could happen upon Omar, a multi-instrument-playing, dreadlocked Brit whose ad-lib scatting (what we can now, after almost 20 years, patent as Omaresque) and vocal tone was a fresh update of the blind legend – more homage than jacking (pay attention, Glen Lewis).

There’s Nothing Like This, Omar’s debut, would set off a string of 6 studio albums where the magnificence lay in workmanlike excellence. In 1995, the same year D’Angelo dropped Brown Sugar, Omar released For Pleasure, his third studio album. “Saturday” was the first single released from the album, with an accompanying video – the first time he was introduced to most listeners stateside. That LP had jazz ballads, picnic-funk and soul brother tunes with odd euro quirks, as if Leon Ware remixed the Austin Powers score. By this time, American artists (including Stevie himself) were throwing props at Omar much the way Pharell once called J Dilla his favorite producer. Omar influenced this “neo” soul movement more than anyone, save (maybe) Raphael Saadiq and Tony Toni Tone.

It’s no wonder that by 2001, after major labels had 5 years to successfully hack “neo” soul into a packaged box, soulstresses Angie Stone and Erykah Badu show up on Best By Far, Omar’s fourth release. Where D’Angelo and Badu had put out ultra-exploratory releases the year before (Voodoo and Mama’s Gun) and newbie Bilal was on his own personal trip, Omar had been doing this for over 10 years.

There was no need for experimentation, hence, Best By Far – a stunning piece in that Omar (in full singer-songwriter-producer mode) found inventive ways to stay creative while keeping everything in the pocket. The title track remains one of the most pervasive grooves recorded in the new millennium – just bass, rumbling drums, some peculiar reeds, a chorus refrain and Omar’s ad-lib scatting. He did and does this soul thing better than anyone. His recent release, ’06’s Sing…if you want it, is so constant with good music that it’s almost like Chinese water torture… that is, if Chinese water torture feels like a full-body massage with a happy ending. Angie Stone shows up again and Common returns the favor for Omar, blessing Electric Circus with multiple guest vocals by offering a guest verse for “Gimme Sum”. And the granddaddy endorsement of them all happens towards the end of the album when Stevie Wonder himself does the duet thing on “Feelin’ You.”

Consider TIRM World Watch a tool: It keeps an ear to the ground and both eyes open for foreign acts that every true stateside music lover should check out. If ever there was a worthy candidate, Omar is that dude. He pioneered renaissances in the 2 most critical music scenes (American and Britain) and continues to offer music that is (no joke) as good as it gets. For every move he makes, the world should be watching.