Much has happened since neo-soul man Musiq released his debut album Aijuswanaseing in late 2000. He dropped “Soulchild” from the end of his stage name, and in March 2001 he opened an Erykah Badu show at the Taft Theatre with a set so tepid it was uggested he consider changing the front end of his name to Musak.

        So it comes as a surprise that Musiq put on the performance he did Thursday night at Bogart's. He sold out the club and proceeded to sustain a buzz in the crowd for the quick and concise hour-long set of songs pulled from the debut and Juslisen, the follow-up CD released Tuesday.

        And he knocked them out without working too hard. Musiq's music falls into the category of “natural” R&B, a media-created genre that in Musiq's case is a nice way of saying he's greatly indebted to '70s soul, especially Stevie Wonder. Like Mr. Wonder, Musiq, a young Philadelphia native, is not a shouter. But Mr. Wonder's singing voice is singular; Musiq's is rather generic, and any of his three back-up singers could have probably blown him off the stage vocally given the chance.

        Musiq seemed to know this, and in turn played to his strengths, none of which he himself possessed. His greatest strength was his band, who finessed its way through quiet-storm R&B, easy-swinging blues balladry, and DJ-beat-fueled mid-tempo love anthems. The back-ups sang the choruses — with the help of a crowd as familiar with the new stuff as the old — while Musiq let forth with an unrelenting stream of fluttering “oohhh's” and “yeaah's” and “baaby's.”

        But, judging by the sellout, there's a hungry market for cliche-riddled soul, so, as Musiq might comment, it was all good. Although it's hard to become a star without tapping into some cliches, it's just as hard to make it big without coming up with some sort of unique angle, and Musiq's seems to be that he's a really nice guy with a sexual appetite that often fills him with guilt. Maybe that's why the women in the crowd were especially into the show.

        Lyrically, songs like “Just Friends,” and “Reallove” plunged no deeper than their titles. He likes girls. Sometimes he follows through with his urge; sometimes he doesn't. The only time he turned the urge into interesting fodder was the medley about underage temptation, “Seventeen/Caughtup.”

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