Artist India.Arie

With its infusion of real messages into music of the most soulful stripe, India.Arie’s 2001 debut,Acoustic Soul, touched the same nerve as albums by Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill. Arie fared even better with Voyage To India, a follow-up that channeled the spirit of Motown’s finest into an organic, modern sound. Then Arie promptly fell off the map: 2006’s Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship was a thoroughly forgettable break-up album full of more generic platitudes than the self-help section at Barnes & Noble. Arie issued a sequel, Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics in 2009 and is currently working on a collaboration with Israeli singer Idan Raichel called Open Door that’s due in October. 

Updated 07/13/2011