![\"INDIA-ARIE-Issue-No27\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/INDIA-ARIE-Issue-No27.jpg\")
INDIA.ARIE \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/b><\/h1>\nINDIA.ARIE \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/b><\/h1>\nThe distinctive artist defines success\u2014and her music\u2014in her own terms \u00a0 \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cI had no idea I could make an\u00a0album in six months,\u201d says India.Arie of her fifth studio project, SongVersation<\/i>. \u201cI\u2019ve never done anything that fast. Ever. I don\u2019t do anything fast. But I told myself that\u2019s what I needed to do\u2014and I did it. I\u2019m still laughing at that one.\u201d\u00a0That kind of speed hardly sounds like the process of a woman who had been planning retirement only three years earlier. But the four-time Grammy winner has had a lot of practice. For more than a decade, she\u2019s been creating R&B-inflected pop albums, selling 10 million records in the process. Still, she wasn\u2019t happy with the direction her albums had taken. \u201cPeople I was working with always wanted me to do production that would get played on black radio,\u201d she says. \u201cBut that type of production wasn\u2019t what gave me chills or made me want to dance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arie recorded an Israeli-influenced album, Open Door<\/i>, only to shelve the project. But rather than pack it in, she re-evaluated. \u201cI just wanted to do what I love, and those are my main things,\u201d says Arie, 37. \u201cIt\u2019s in me all the time, and not being able to put it in my music is something I never want to have to feel again. To feel unexpressed like that made me sick.\u201d Produced primarily by longtime collaborator Shannon Sanders, SongVersation <\/i>reflects India.Arie\u2019s life experiences. The artist talked with us from NYC about traveling, growing up, and how\u2014when\u00a0all else fails\u2014you can always look to\u00a0Oprah for advice.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What was your goal with this record?<\/b><\/p>\n
My goal from the beginning\u2014even before I finished my first album\u2014was to bring my life experiences to my music. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve always done lyrically, but have never been given the freedom to do with the production. My goal when I decided to do that was, \u201cI\u2019m going to do this now, but I\u2019m going from here based on the experiences I have.\u201d I was thinking somebody was supposed to give me my freedom, but really I needed to just take it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What inspired SongVersation<\/i>?<\/b><\/p>\n
After deciding to retire and then realizing that I didn\u2019t want to retire, I really wanted to pursue my career on my own terms. I met a Turkish singer, Sezen Aksu, walking downtown in the Village. She always said if I ever needed anything, or if I ever wanted to do music with her, all I had to do was ask. When the album I was working on, Open Door<\/i>, fell through\u2014and I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s ever going to come out\u2014I called and told her I was working on a new album. Her exact words were, \u201cAnything my India is doing, I\u2019m in.\u201d So I quickly flew to Turkey, and she had all of Turkey\u2019s most sought-after musicians in her studio.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tell us about the album\u2019s sound.<\/b><\/p>\n
The record has Middle Eastern\u2013style string arrangements, live Middle Eastern percussion, and Middle Eastern approaches to woodwinds and brass. You\u2019ll hear Turkish elements in particular, but it\u2019s Middle Eastern\u2013style inside a Western musical approach. I hear people say, \u201cWhat is that? Is that strings?\u201d You can hear it\u2019s a string section, but to our Western way of hearing music, we never hear a whole orchestra of people sliding notes, so it sounds like a new instrument.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Does every song reflect that influence?<\/b><\/p>\n
What I really love is real simple, quiet, acoustic music. That\u2019s the kind of music that really touches my soul. I have some songs that are just guitar, vocal and a bit of beat\u2014really simple. There are other songs that are piano-driven. I met a pianist in Hawaii named Michael Ruff who has a very special way of working chords\u2014it\u2019s mystical and dreamy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Did you dust off any older songs?<\/b><\/p>\n
For me, the most remarkable thing about this album is that I really started a new album. It wasn\u2019t like, \u201cLet me pull some things out of the vault and polish them off.\u201d I wasn\u2019t in that place of healing from heartbreak or struggling with my empowerment. I\u2019m not there anymore, so songs like that didn\u2019t resonate.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What was the writing process like?<\/b><\/p>\n
My most frequent collaborator, Shannon Sanders, who wrote songs on my first album, ended up producing and writing songs for all my subsequent albums. We went somewhere by the water and just wrote. It was that feeling when you\u2019re not writing songs to any end other than the desire to write songs. We ended up taking those to Turkey, and bringing them back with a whole lot done. We were all shocked by how much we got finished in Turkey in just five days.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What lyrical themes did you cover?<\/b><\/p>\n
The common thread in all the songs is a very present expression of my spiritual philosophies. Not religious, just how I feel things work. It\u2019s the basic, fundamental, spiritual truth: Be good to each other, love someone for more than what they look like on the outside, feel the energy of the earth\u2014and be happy to be alive, knowing that being alive isn\u2019t easy but it\u2019s a journey.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Were any songs difficult to write?<\/b><\/p>\n
There\u2019s one I never would have the courage to let myself write. It\u2019s called \u201cLife I Know.\u201d I never had any experience like that. I\u2019ve had songs that made me feel a little throb in my throat or I had to call my mom and have her listen to it, but this song? I cried for three days. Then all my girlfriends I sent it to cried for days. It\u2019s a song about what it feels like to be a 30-something-year-old woman still trying to figure things out. A person who wasn\u2019t really listening would say that it\u2019s about love. And it is, but not the romantic kind that you hear about on the radio.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Was it a struggle to release the album on your terms?<\/b><\/p>\n
I empowered myself. It doesn\u2019t have anything to do with me pushing it through. I don\u2019t have an attachment to anyone\u2019s acceptance or approval. I know I could have bigger album sales, be a bigger artist if I made certain choices. My vision of success is clarity of my intentions and reaching that intention while being true to myself. Commercial success comes second to what my definition of success in life is. I say what I want and what I don\u2019t want. People have disagreed, so we don\u2019t have to work together\u2014and that\u2019s OK. I don\u2019t feel that crazy, disappointed feeling in my stomach, because I know what it feels like to have what other people deem success and not feel good. I\u2019m willing to walk away from any situation or anyone that\u2019s not right for me, which is why I was able to shelve Open Door<\/i>. I learned how to let go.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Where did you find the strength?<\/b><\/p>\n
In the fall of 2009 when I decided I was going to retire, I emailed Oprah and told her I was going through this, and she said\u2014this is paraphrasing\u2014\u201cSet your intentions, and the universe will rise up to meet you wherever you are.\u201d I took a chance on that. \u201cWell, what if I really did just do what I wanted to do?\u201d What I\u2019ve learned by taking that one chance is that the universe rises up to meet you wherever you are. Every time. That\u2019s why I feel free to release the music I want to make. I know now that I can, and that\u00a0it\u2019s going to be fine.<\/p>\n
\u2013Amanda Farah<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
INDIA.ARIE \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The distinctive artist defines success\u2014and her music\u2014in her own terms \u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cI had no idea I could make an\u00a0album in six months,\u201d says India.Arie of her fifth studio project, SongVersation. \u201cI\u2019ve never done anything that fast. Ever. I don\u2019t do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[6924,6875,6926,6925],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10324"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10324"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10327,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10324\/revisions\/10327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}