“I had to take a deep breath and say, OK, let’s just not do it.”)Īrie said that because “Open Door” “reeked” of ill feelings toward her career, she purposefully opted to not channel hurt feelings over scrapping that album into “Songversation.” Instead she crafted the album she’d always wanted. (“We couldn’t agree on the business terms at all,” Arie offered. The recording sessions were spurred by the demise of a previous album, “Open Door,” a passion project with Israeli singer Idan Raichel. Though Arie’s hard-earned confidence makes “Songversation” an inspirational, even iridescent listen, the album didn’t come without conflict. “It wasn’t until I decided I was going to do what I wanted to do or I was going to quit that I empowered myself. “I always felt like - I mean I was told, really - I couldn’t go too far with the productions because it didn’t appeal to black radio,” she explained.
2, Love & Politics,” and considered leaving music.
She eventually crumbled after 2009’s “Testimony: Vol. PHOTOS: Arts and culture in pictures by The TimesĪs Arie “walked the line really carefully” between satisfying label expectations and her own artistry, a handful of albums followed - some sturdier than others. “If I were not a black artist but I was still singing, playing guitar and singing ballads that are spiritual and cerebral, I’d be easier to market because people accept that from white female singer-songwriters faster.” There was a lane cut right out for me because people were interested, but that lasted a couple of years,” she said. “I’m not a straight-down-the-middle artist. But after “Acoustic Soul,” was shut out at the Grammys despite seven nominations in 2002, Arie’s spirit was broken, and she started feeling the pressure to fit into a landscape of easily marketable R&B divas.
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I’m still trying to figure out how to wrap my words around my feelings about it.”Īrie instantly became a critics’ darling and a torchbearer for a new class of neo-soul singers that included Alicia Keys and Jill Scott. " that conversation belongs to the black community. “I was completely taken off guard,” Arie said by phone from Atlanta.
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The photo was trending on Twitter in March as commenters mulled her “lighter” complexion and issued a rash accusation: Did the singer - long praised for Afro-centric anthems such as “Brown Skin,” “Video” and “I Am Not My Hair” - have her skin “bleached”? On it the 37-year-old poses with her tresses in a towering head wrap, legs peeking from a short dress, and her skin, possibly glistening from the song’s titular product, glowing. It’s a signature Arie track with a positive message wrapped in a tender groove that made news of a backlash over the single - her first in more than four years - disturbing. On India.Arie’s new song, “Cocoa Butter,” she sweetly sings of a love that nourishes past scars.
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