Send "Ledisi " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 The cover of Ledisi’s latest record, Pieces of Me, cleverly features a head shot of the musician as an uncompleted jigsaw puzzle. The conceit suggests that the singer is a work in progress. While skillfully presented, this theme—the artist as an unfinished person who uses music to explore the creator’s different sides—is very common. What makes Ledisi interesting isn’t how she arranges the pieces of the puzzle per se. It’s the appeal of the separate pieces and that they can be rearranged without ever altering the meaning of the whole.As a performance artist, Mel Andringa has shown (e.g., “Puzzle Pictures”) jigsaw puzzle manufacturers use only a limited number of cut-out patterns. It’s not just that individual puzzles may just have different pictures on them but that someone with patience and a good eye can interchange the pieces to create collage type works of surprising interest and creativity. The template is the same, as is the number of pieces and their arrangements, but within the confined specifications, new, inspiring art can be made. Ledisi uses clichéd song ideas as tropes and canned rhythms as instrumental arrangements while she sings about the importance of being true to oneself as a special person. Despite the seeming paradox, it works. Ledisi offers a positive vibe in an inspiring and infectious voice. To hear her is to be convinced. From the very first track that serves as the title song, Ledisi employs tired and corny lyrics (i.e., “ Like every woman I know / I’m complicated fo sho / But when I love, I love til there’s no love no mo”), but she sings them with such passion that the listener cannot help but be swayed. The mechanical drum machine that counts out the beat works as a martial aid as Ledisi marches into a better world where she can be her real, beautiful self. Even when she’s in a destructive mode, she does so only because the other person is trying to hold her back. Consider the delightful diatribe, “Shut Up”. Ledisi offers a litany of charges against her detractor in the guise of that person’s negativity about her (“You’ll never be what you want to be / And you’ll never get so far”). As the song title says, she just wants that person to be quiet so she can proceed achieving her dream. Ledisi sings the whole song to a mechanical drum and clap rhythm that allows her voice to soar without the listener ever losing the beat. This offers the aural impression that the singer is grounded in reality even as she flies. The quality of her vocals serves as convincing proof that she can transcend life’s limitations....full text |
| Latimesblogs |
| Soul singer Ledisi makes a basic declaration near the end of “Pieces of Me,” the title track of her new album: “I’m a woman.” She sings the affirmation a few times, for good measure: “I’m a woman” — neither shouted nor whispered, with a few notes of piano and a slight echo for minimal effect. It’s a straightforward statement of self-realization in a song and album that are about coming to grips with the multiplicity of female identity. That simplicity renders power: Where a less disciplined artist might have gone for a full-throated, orchestral gospel exclamation, the New Orleans-born, Oakland-bred singer with the Nigerian first name makes a statement, period. On her sixth album (depending how you count them), Ledisi — sounding at times like Patti LaBelle, Aretha Franklin or Erykah Badu, and looking like Janelle Monáe as Billie Holliday — explores different pieces of herself: the libido (“Coffee,” “So Into You”); the ego (“Hate Me,” “Shut Up”); the heart (the Jaheim duet “Stay Together”). “Pieces of Me” enlists multiple collaborators, including Chuck Harmony, Rex Rideout and Salaam Remi, to mixed effect. I have to wonder what Ledisi could do with Rick Rubin and Paul Epworth, Adele’s producers on “21.” The deployment of clichéd lyrics and programmatic rhythm tracks undermines her message of determined individualism....full text |
| Soultracks |
| Usually, writers loathe simple sayings and well-worn clichés, but when it comes to describing the evolution of Ledisi Anibade Young, “art imitating life” is only one that fits. Since childhood, the Oakland, California transplant (by way of New Orleans) has nurtured her craft, performing in city-based productions (as part of a cabaret troupe and as Dorothy in a local rendition of The Wiz), studying opera and piano at the University of California of Berkeley and enrapturing music lovers with her effervescent stage aura and gumbo-styled approach to lyrics and vocalization (some jazz phrasing here, a pinch of blues there, a dash of funk and hip-hop stirred into a steamy, urbanized concoction of soul). Recognition for Ledisi’s skills started with her one-time California-based band, Anibade, but finally gelled after a pair of popular independent releases (2001’s Soulsinger: The Revival, and Feeling Orange But Sometimes Blue the following year) garnered her an international fan base, a solo deal with Verve and a pair of Grammy Award nominations and for the critically-acclaimed third CD, 2007’s Lost and Found. In some cases, an entertainer's personal and professional growth run parallel to one another, but Ledisi’s paths constantly intersect: if the years of uncertainty and soul-searching between projects dominated the tone of Lost…., her rejuvenated confidence blossomed in its follow-up, 2009’s Turn Me Loose. Pieces of Me, if you will, represents a merging of the two, owning her fabulousness and acknowledging the flaws that create her essence as a woman. Like she did in….Loose, Ledisi aligns her lyrical prowess and enviably elastic vocal range with some proven heavy-hitters, such as John Legend, Mike City, Chuck Harmony, Jaheim, Claude Kelly, KayGee and Carvin & Ivan. A variety of moods and genres are represented throughout: “So Into You” is a sweet and sultry mid-tempo, unabashedly praising a do-right man (“There’s so much more to us, but this is physical/ it’s like a carnival, and I’m ready now to go for a ride”). “Coffee” jumps off like a well-worn vinyl classic, buttressed with old school high hats and horns and dripping with fiery funk as she sassily describes the way she’s gotta have it, “tall, strong and dark, just like I like my coffee/that’s the way I like my man, that’s how you gotta love me, that’s the way I like my coffee.” A twisted type of passion is described in “Hate That You Love Me,” a blues-tinged, almost-vampy taunt to a love-struck man hesitant about staying or leaving: “One call, two calls, three calls, is that what I do to you?” she purrs. “You’re outside my door, scared to be alone, I know you’re addicted too.” Not that Ms. Young chooses to expound on just on the toe-curling, sentimental aspects (“Stay Together,” a nimble duet with soul crooner Jaheim, and the achingly melancholy reconciliation ode, “I Miss You Now”). Ledisi is also empowering, encouraging those who are making strides in life to celebrate themselves and one another in the magnificent mantra, “Bravo,” and commanding that women recognize their worth before expecting others to in the doo-wop-flavored “BGTY (Be Good To Yourself).” “Shut Up” isn’t a love letter, obviously, but the powerful and percussive track summarizes her attitude about Negative Nellys and busybodies who do nothing more than criticize---“They say ‘you’ll never be what you want to be, and you’ll never get but so far’/I’m trying hard, gotta hold my tongue, sometimes I really, really wish I could say, I wanna tell em’ ‘Shut up!’”...full text |
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