R&B hunks: serving up soul and sensuality.(singers)(Interview)

NOT only do they sound good, but they also look good. Avant, Montell Jordan, Joe, Glenn Lewis and Musiq Soulchild represent a new school of R&B artists who mesmerize with their voices and tantalize with their model-like sex appeal. For many Sisters, just the sound of their names can conjure up delicious little fantasies of being swept off one's feet.

Boasting the soulful sensuality of legendary R&B artists of the past, these five balladeers perform the songs that capture the heart and seduce the mind.

JOE, 27, is the handsome Southern prince who arrives just in time to save his legions of female fans from a broken heart. To the Brothers, Joe offers the slow grooves that pave the way out of the doghouse and back into a woman's good graces.

With his latest album, Better Days, the Opelika, Ala., son of two Pentecostal preachers takes on social causes. "I wanted to talk about the things that are really happening in the world ... I wanted to go deeper."

Rest assured that Joe isn't abandoning his status as the poster child for romanticism any time soon. Although he's not ready to settle down yet, the single father (he has a young daughter) knows what he wants in a woman.

"The kind of woman I want is educated," he says. "When I come home, she can enlighten me about certain things, but even with all that knowledge, she can also wind it down, kick back and laugh."

MONTELL JORDAN, with his staggering ballplayer height (6-foot-8) and well-kept goatee, prefers to "bring it" from the male perspective. Fans are familiar with the softer side of the 32-year-old married South Central, Los Angeles, native because he's not afraid of showing his vulnerability; he's very open about his marriage, fatherhood, being adopted and, of course, his spirituality.