Music Review: India.Aire, Testimony: Vol 2, Love and Politics

By Steve Morley

When the singer/songwriter India Arie released 2006’s Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship, she’d already decided on a title for her follow-up, Testimony: Vol 2, Love and Politics. What she probably hadn’t planned on was the severed relationship to come with her Motown Records home and the resulting fallout that would give her a surplus of emotional fodder for an album partly about interpersonal challenges. But the reigning princess of affirming, faith-centered soul music has re-emerged victorious. She’s now on her own record label, validating the power of the sunny, can-do attitude that many critics dismissed as overly rose-colored. She’s also maintained musical momentum even after a two-and-a-half year gap. Testimony Vol. 2 serves a second course of diverse and meaty R&B that consults the same recipes but rarely sounds warmed-over.

The new album takes on a more global feel than her previous outing, with a lineup of international guests and an ambition to show the interconnectedness of all humanity. It’s a big concept, and one that doesn’t always escape sounding fragmented. For instance, romance at its most exciting and fulfilling—covered on “Therapy” and ”He Heals Me” — unfolds alongside the suffering of African sisters on a cover of Sade’s “Pearls.” The depiction in “Pearls” of the downtrodden living outside the Western world but “under the same sky” is more fully explored on “Ghetto.” In the lyric, Arie extends the notion of division between people groups literally across the globe. In the process, she attempts to show our shared condition, for better or worse. (“Now the dictionary says/ That the ghetto is a place/ Of minority and poverty and overpopulation/ But we live on this earth together/ Ain’t no separation/ When you’re lookin’ down from outer space/ We’re just the human race/ And the world is a ghetto/ It’s in every place and every country...”) The recurring theme of devotion scattered throughout the disc on “Grains,” parts one through four, represents our common human alliance in a far more inspirational light: “Every time I think I’m separate/ I remember we’re created by one God/ I’m grateful that you created me from the same grains/ With the same things…”

Though she always intends to uplift—sometimes succumbing to clichés—she doesn’t avoid difficult realities. “Better Way,” anchored on a bluesy riff provided by Keb’ Mo’, takes aim at the U.S. government’s mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, an issue that has yet to exhaust itself in the American musical community. It goes on to survey detached politicians and the myriad cultural issues they fail to address, especially those that most adversely affect inner-city communities and disenfranchised groups. She approaches the need for global change strictly as a social problem, wielding her faith in God most explicitly when it concerns personal circumstances. “River Rise” is an affecting cry for spiritual reconnection, and the stripped-down hip-hop on “Psalms 23” explains biblically how Arie has endured pain and professional setbacks. (“They tried to put this stick in between my wheels/ But they can’t stop my motivation—nothing will/ I’ve walked through the valley where the shadow of death is/ I’ve feared no evil ‘cause I’m protected…”)

It takes effort to embrace the holistic concept she presents on Testimony: Vol 2, Love & Politics. But by binding themes of agony and ecstasy into a single strand, Arie gives her affirmations credibility and purpose. And, in her version of the story, love triumphs.

Audio Clips

"Psalms 23"

"Ghetto"

"He Heals Me"

"Therapy"