Not a good comparison.
Sade is a 'song stylist' of her own songs that she and her band compose and perform. It is basically a hermetically sealed unit. We just lost the “reference standard” of female singers in Whitney. Whitney in her prime could of sung any style or genre of music with ease— Gospel, R&B, Rock, Jazz, Blues, whatever. Her producers and she kept her closely confined in Pop-R&B — but if they wanted to they could have had Whitney sing an album full of hit ‘cover songs’ by various artists and it would have worked. Whitney’s famous rendition of the national anthem is emblematic of her ability to make a well-known song her own in an inimitable style. Anita Baker while not the singer Whitney was also is a singer who can sing many different styles and genres. Sade has to stay inside of her beautifully created hermetically sealed ‘Sade & Band’ unit. Sade would not be singing the national anthem. Anita would do a great job singing it. Anita or Whitney could walk onto a show like Letterman and using the house band perform an excellent rendition of Stevie Wonder’s gold standard song “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” with just one rehearsal. Sade, not so much, she’s knotted to her excellent band and their particular sound.
Am I the only one that pictured this dude talking while I read this?