The song sequence moves from personal relations (“Moved by You”) to universal ones (“Brother’s Keeper”) the music reinforces Ms. 2, Love & Politics.” The new album attests to love, self-affirmation, insecurities surmounted and troubles overcome: “What did not demolish me simply polished me,” she declares in “Soulbird Rise,” which ascends from folky solitude to a choir-backed anthem. Positive thinking could hardly get more positive than it does on “SongVersation” (Motown), India Arie’s fifth studio album and her first since her contentious 2009 album, “Testimony: Vol. Sonically as well as verbally, they set aside hip-hop swagger to contemplate how the present reconfigures the past. The tracks, mostly in minor keys, are bass heavy, unhurried and unexpectedly thoughtful. But where Daft Punk went on to build pop songs, Pretty Lights sticks to dance music. This time, instead of sampling old vinyl, he worked with musicians, singers and rappers in Brooklyn and New Orleans to emulate 1960s and 1970s soul grooves, then pressed vinyl discs of his own tracks to be sampled and collaged.
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Derek Vincent Smith, the D.J.-producer from Denver who records as Pretty Lights, has worked his way up the electronic dance music circuit with tracks steeped in the midtempo stomp and distorted undertow of hip-hop he releases all of his music for free download from his Web site, though for “A Color Map of the Sun,” he’s also selling CDs and LPs. Daft Punk decided to trade samples and programming for live musicians, revisiting vintage funk styles in the studio, and released its album “Random Access Memories” just weeks before Pretty Lights revealed a similar metamorphosis on its new album, “A Color Map of the Sun” (Pretty Lights Music). In 2019, she returned to gorgeous form with Worthy, a clutch of emotional, inspiring acoustic songs.Timing can be treacherous. Instead, Arie has stuck to her truth and shown just how versatile she is, collaborating with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, the Turkish singer Sezen Aksu, and country band Rascal Flatts (2006’s “Summer” is a fast-moving, rootsy revelation). Her sophomore effort, 2002’s Voyage to India, was similarly successful-but Arie struggled through the ensuing years with industry veterans who urged her to mute her messages.
Their investment paid off when her debut album, 2001’s Acoustic Soul, took off on the strength of the female-empowerment anthem “Video.” Though less hip-hop-aligned than some of her neo-soul contemporaries, Arie spoke to fans hungry for authenticity the album was certified double platinum within months. She was invited to play at the Lilith Fair in 1998-the same year that Lauryn Hill released her smash solo debut-and Motown signed her soon after, no doubt eager to mimic Hill’s success.
With her acoustic sound and preternaturally warm and welcoming voice, Arie quickly found community in the Groovement art collective in the 1990s. She didn’t take music seriously until after high school, when she began playing guitar. Born India Arie Simpson in Denver in 1975, Arie lived there until her parents divorced she moved to Atlanta with her mother at age 13.
India.Arie is not only a singer/songwriter in the vein of ’70s heroes like Bill Withers and Roberta Flack but also a spiritual seeker who invites fans along on her healing journeys, and it’s this balance between self-revelation and artistry that has won her a devoted following.