India.Arie redefines a career

India.Arie

Mention Memphis to soul songstress India.Arie, and she comes alive.

"Oooh, I love playing there," enthuses Arie, who will perform at the Orpheum on Sunday. "People always give me that extra love."

India.Arie has ties to Memphis, where her mother and family were born. Jimmy Burch

In fact, this weekend's concert will be a homecoming of sorts for the Colorado-born, Georgia-raised singer. Arie's family has Bluff City roots stretching back several generations.

"My mother was born there, all of her sisters -- eight of them -- were born there; my grandparents were born in Memphis, my great-grandparents, and my great-great grandparents. So it's always great when we do a show there," she says. "It's like I'm their homegirl."

Arie seemed like everybody's homegirl when she burst onto the national scene in 2001, with the release of her multiplatinum, seven-time Grammy-nominated debut, Acoustic Soul.

However, after the release of her second album, Voyage To India, in 2002, Arie would not put out another record for four years.

"It wasn't a strategic decision. It was more like I was tired," Arie says. "Very tired. Not just of my career but of life. I was going through a lot of different things, and I needed to focus my energy on personal stuff."

Like so many fellow stars of the neo-soul movement -- including Maxwell -- Arie's hiatus was perhaps frustrating to fans, but essential from a creative perspective.

"Well, I don't love the term 'neo-soul,' but the thing that neo-soul artists have in common is that we write our own songs. And it's hard to write your own songs when you're not feeling it, or if you're not in that place," she says.

"As an artist, your main concern is always the state of your creativity. It's not about having your stomach as flat as the next girl or whatever. It's about 'When am I going to write more songs?' And sometimes you just have to let it come when it comes."

For Arie, the music began flowing again with the the album series Testimony. The first volume -- Life & Relationship -- was released in 2006 and became Arie's first Billboard chart-topper. Earlier this year, she followed up with the second volume, Love & Politics. Both albums were recognized with further Grammy nominations, and each expanded her musical spectrum, touching on everything from world music to American folk.

For Arie, who has largely been tagged as a neo-soul or contemporary R&B artist, such labels mean little.

"I see myself as a singer-songwriter. I know why people consider me R&B or neo-soul, and it's because that's what my radio singles have been, but that was a choice; I wanted to be on black radio," she adds. "But if you listen to my albums, you hear folk songs, little bits of bluegrass, country songs. My vocal style is a soul/gospel and black American vocal styling. But, really, I don't think about genre; I just think about being me."

Despite her massive and continuing success, Arie says that her decade working in the music industry has taught her important lessons about balancing the creative and the commercial.

"I was 25 years old when my first album came out, so I knew that life could be challenging at times and that things don't always work out the way you plan. I knew those basic things," says Arie. "But what I didn't know was how hard people would push you or that they lie in business the way they would never in their real life. In the music business especially, the whole code of ethics is different, and I had to learn that. Having those lessons be attached to something I cared about as much as my music, that was really heavy."

These days, given the collapse of the traditional music business -- where label backing, radio airplay, singles and sales figures have become marginalized as barometers of success -- Arie, supported by a genuinely dedicated base of music fans, is the one sitting pretty.

"It's liberating to me, not because I ever felt confined by that stuff. Even before Acoustic Soul came out, I knew there were going to be certain challenges in maintaining a career. At the time my mantra was 'I'm always going to be true to my music and let the chips fall where they may,'" she says, chuckling. "I laugh about it now because I was too naïve to understand how hard that was going to be. Even though it was hard at times, I've never done anything I didn't want to do. Nowadays, because those commercial considerations are far less important, it's even easier to be true to yourself and your creativity."

After the Memphis show, Arie will wrap up her current headlining tour, and then pair up with piano man John Legend for a number of summer dates. A new album is likely on the horizon for some point in 2010 or 2011, but in the meantime -- whether she's traveling on the tour bus or lying on the beach -- Arie will continue to do what she does best: write, sing and create.

"I don't limit my artistry just to my music; it's an overall way of thinking," she says. "It's a constant thing ... an absolutely constant thing, and it's a joy."

-- Bob Mehr: 529-2517

India.Arie with Laura Izibor

Sunday, 8 p.m. at the Orpheum, 203 S. Main. Tickets cost $67.50 and $79.50. They are available at all Ticketmaster outlets, online at ticketmaster.com or by phone at (800) 745-3000.

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