Arie using her amazing abilities as a composer for a beautifully flowing, neo soul friendly funky soul to Perform at The Schermerhorn - The Tennessee Tribune Close Search for:Īward-winning singer-songwriter India.Arie will make her Nashville orchestral debut this week, as she joins the Nashville Symphony to perform selections from her 20 years-plus career of hit songs. To me, “Little Things” is an example of India. It has a heavier studiocentric approach than much of her debut album. A lot of lyrical verses after another rather than a refrain/chorus/bridge setup. In terms of its actual structure, its more of a folk type song. Musically speaking, its a somewhat more stripped down variant of the jazzy chords of Stevie Wonder compositions and a soul/funk rhythm-similar to Mary J Blige’s “All That I Can Say”. The song comes to an abrupt end after a long vocal run on the extended chorus. Other times rhythm guitar and electric piano flourishes are stronger-along with what sounds like a baby crying. As the vocal/lyrical flavor of the song changes, so does the feeling of the music. The drum, at first stop and start comes into the mix with a strong accent of heavy percussion and a heavy, ascending bass line. The sound of the gong starts of the intro of vocal harmonies from India.Arie that begins the song-with a bell like electric piano echo in the back round. But it was a huge step ahead in terms of instrumentation and songwriting. Its main single didn’t perform commercially the way “Video” did. Her second album Voyage To India came out the next year. This resulted in India becoming a major face of the coalescing neo soul movement of the time. That literally described the first song I heard from her entitled “Video”, where she talked of her she desired music and humanity, for herself and others, not to be seen as a product. Arie made her debut on Motown in 2001 with her Acoustic Soul. She also learned of her strong African roots via DNA testing-including that of the Kru people of the nation of Liberia. This occurred while attending the Savannah School Of Art & Design.

After her parents divorced and she moved to Georgia, India’s musical interests (always encouraged by her family) became even more pronounced-as she actively began to learn both guitar and composition. Her mother Joyce was a singer who toured with Stevie Wonder-as well as Al Green. India Arie Simpson was born in Denver, Colorado to a family not only drenched in music.

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