in an off-Broadway production about the plus-size crooner's legacy.

And Lanar is on it, baby.

A singer since he was 7 years old, Lanar grew up using his deep bass voice to interpret the stylings of everyone from the Temptations to Otis Redding to Marvin Gaye. But all that changed in 2003, the year the Sultan of Soul, the Walrus of Love and the Buddha of the Bedroom died of kidney failure at the age of 58.

From that point forward, Lanar became strictly a Barry White man.