[Stevie Wonder] has begun writing and producing music exploring several layers of experience—music that addresses itself not only to one's romantic needs but to racial grief, urban defeat, transcendental perception and, more recently, to religious experience.

Because of his music's transformation and also because of its variety, Stevie Wonder … has become all things to all who hear him: the child prodigy who made the transition to adulthood as a productive musician, the blind seer apocalyptically exposing America's injustices, the sightless man-child who still manages to smile, the musician who refused to accept the tyranny and paternalism of corporate recording interests, the black flower-child ruled by visions and astrological signs, the blind nature-boy telling us that the only thing which matters is to love and be loved in return, the black brother who has "made it," who is still "for real" and still funky and, finally—and perhaps...