This weekend, the Essence Music Festival comes to town with a pretty exciting lineup, particularly in the superlounges, which are more intimate than you’d expect any space in the Superdome to be.

On Sunday, Raphael Saadiq plays, and I wrote about him in the current issue. He has a new DVD, Live from the Artists Den, that subtly continues Saadiq’s practice of conflating the past and present. While he and his backing singers are in Motown-esque suits, the imitation’s not exact, starting with a female singer, Erika Jerry, in a similar suit joining him and Billy Kemp, Jr.  doing the choreography. The band has a sense of style, but there are a few newsboy caps – not period-appropriate – on band members, and close-ups  reveal a few heavily tattooed arms.

More significantly, he shows how soul music is all part of a continuity, phrasing his lyrics in a more contemporary way as the tempos of the songs on The Way I See It slack a bit. He drifts into the blues and closes with the ’70s jazz/soul Stevie-style, “Skyy, Can You Feel Me.” At no point do the transitions seem forced nor purely retro; he’s simply showing his roots – roots his contemporaries have, whether they’ll show them or not.

Also on Sunday night, Zap Mama plays a Superlounge. Her new album, ReCreation, is like an exotic cocktail. I appreciate her heady blend of African, European, natural and electronic elements, but as glam as she is, I could use something that gives her music grounding. I don’t necessarily need soul, but an earthy element beneath the sonic confetti, mylar balloons and retro lasers that define the music would really help. I think the constrained (by comparison to previous albums) Marie Daulne is supposed to be that stabilizing force, but her diva is too irrepressible to be anyone’s bedrock.

… and here’s an Essence rumor to consider: Lionel Richie’s set Sunday may become a Commodores reunion.