India.Arie channels her passion
by Alan Sculley Nov 27, 2002
After her debut CD, Acoustic Soul, sold more than 2 million copies and netted seven Grammy nominations, there was little doubt that India.Arie"s newly released second CD, Voyage To India, would be a closely-watched release this fall. 
India.Arie will perform at the Murat Theater on Sunday, Dec. 1.
But rather than allow pressure or expectations about the style of music she is supposed to make to factor into the creative process, Arie said she approached the Voyage To India project by making a deal with herself. "You can say it went like that [first time]. How can I do it again? Or you can say, "OK, I can"t do that again, I"m scared and I have writer"s block,"" Arie said, noting that bowing to pressure was a second realistic, if unappealing, option. "Or you can just forget about [that], and like I had to make a pact with myself that that was what I would do Ö I made that [promise] to remind myself that I make music because I like making music. I have to listen to the ideas that I hear in my head and just do whatever the song wants." In the end, the inspirations that Arie followed resulted in a CD that continues the stylistic path that began on Acoustic Soul. Like the debut, Arie"s music remains rooted in classic soul of the 1960s and 1970s, but with a more modern touch in rhythms that draw from hip-hop, jazz and pop. Ballads like "Slow Down," "Beautiful Surprise" and "Get It Together" set the tone for the new CD, with Arie"s rich vocal melodies backed by spare instrumentation, much of which is built around Arie"s trademark acoustic guitar playing. The process of creating Voyage To India was undoubtedly helped by Arie"s ability to begin writing some of the new material while she was on tour in 2001 opening for Sade. That was well before Acoustic Soul landed in the Grammy spotlight. The daughter of basketball player Ralph Simpson, Arie"s musical journey began while she was growing up in Denver, Colo. During that time she learned to play a variety of instruments. But it wasn"t until she went to college in Savannah, Ga., that she picked up a guitar and with that instrument in hand quickly found herself starting to write songs. Arie said her attraction to the guitar and to songwriting was immediate. "Like I love doing this. This is the best thing in the whole world," she said, describing her feeling. "I mean, I felt like I"d been doing this my whole life. I loved singing and playing guitar and writing songs Ö I could do it all day." Arie gravitated toward songwriting and performing despite the fact that she considered herself to be very shy growing up. These days, she seems comfortable onstage, even though the songs she performs are frequently personal and revealing. But Arie said she hasn"t undergone any major transition. "I was playing guitar for a month and I went to a coffee shop and played," Arie said, explaining how quickly she started playing in public. "I believed in the music that I did Ö My personality hasn"t changed that much. I"m still really shy and I spend a lot of time alone - a lot. I spend an abnormal amount of time alone, ever since I was a little girl." Arie"s path into a music career turned after she had a song included on a compilation CD released in Atlanta. That song earned her second stage appearances on Lilith Fair tour dates in St. Louis and Nashville. Like Acoustic Soul, the new CD is filled with positive themes and messages that seem meant to encourage and inspire. Arie"s upbeat outlook has been criticized by some as a musical equivalent to a self-help guide. Arie defended the sentiments of her songs and said she values the ability of music to touch people and help them through difficult times. "I had a mission where I wanted to take music where it would make a difference," she said. "And everywhere I go, it"s important to see people respond to the songs that I have, and the things that I say in my songs. That right there is what shows me that the healing power of music is real." Arie, though, said it"s not as if she doesn"t write about the difficulties in her life. It"s just that rather than using her lyrics simply to vent her emotions, she said she tries to emphasize the outcome or solution that came out of her experience. "There"s a better way to get out the same emotions and have the same healing effect when you talk about the lesson that you learned from a particular [situation]," Arie said. "Like "Promises" [a song from Acoustic Soul], as light and airy as that song is, it"s about a hard time I was going though in my own life, because a lot of stuff was going wrong I started praying for things to [get better]. That song, a lot of people would write a song about the stuff that went wrong. I wrote a song about what I learned from the experience." Along with noting the positive tone of Voyage To India, some critics have characterized the second CD as being more emotionally direct and intimate. Arie, though, said she feels Acoustic Soul - which centered on romantic relationships - was also plenty personal. She speculated that some of the intimacy people hear in Voyage To India (whose themes branch out to embrace spirituality and family issues) may be partly a product of the way the CD was produced. "The lyrics and the way that the songs sound are closer, closer to what I sound like when I"m just singing in a room," she said. India.Arie will perform at the Murat Theater on Sunday, Dec. 1. For ticket information, call 239-5151 or visit www.ticketmaster.com.
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