Sweat is from a generation of singers for whom performing was a prerequisite for becoming a star, rather than an afterthought that must be learned ASAP once a singer scores a Spotify hit, so his shows are thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. “Would you mind if I kissed your lips 1,000 times?” “How do you like it when I do it just like this?” Sometimes the answers are obvious, but Sweat says them anyway: “Who can love you like me?” he asks. Few performers loved a direct, juicy question as much this one. The long gaps between beats provide Sweat with extra time to cajole, promise, tempt, demand and seduce.

He’s a specialist in slow ballads - there’s a reason this man has a track titled “Make It Last Forever” - that are tenaciously amorous. Not that anyone was complaining: A Keith Sweat hits review is magnificent. He did not give into those demands - except to play the briefest snippet of “How Many Ways,” from his new Playing for Keeps album - preferring instead to focus on the long string of singles that kept him on the radio throughout the Nineties. “They keep telling me to sing something from the new shit,” he complained during his album release show at the iHeartRadio Theater in downtown Manhattan last Thursday.

It would be generous to say that the R&B veteran Keith Sweat looks on that promotional tradition with blithe indifference. Music is a business, after all, and listeners can’t stream or buy your songs if they don’t know that those songs exist. The night before most singers put out an album, tradition dictates that they spend some time promoting their new work.

Keith sweat make it last forever album