What is 'Acoustic Soul'? Singer India Arie reflects on her debut

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Musician India Arie

Credit: Courtesy of India Arie

India Arie is making a pair of rare live appearances in Atlanta to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her debut album, Acoustic Soul. The Grammy-winning singer will perform at Center Stage Atlanta on March 29 and April 3 — and she is reflecting on the local music scene that fostered her success.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, sunny rhythms and community voices joined together to created a sonic portrait of the city in a pre-9/11, pre-social media world. 

For India Arie, the sound was Acoustic Soul, and her debut album on Motown Records, released in March 2001, captured the essence of the moment.

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India Arie's debut album, "Acoustic Soul," was released March 2001 on Motown Records.

Credit: Motown Records

"We were a collective of young people on the same wavelength," she said of the musicians like Khari Cabral Simmons and Donnie who were part of Groovement/Earthseed or frequented venues such as the Yin Yang Cafe. "Later we would end up being called Neo Soul. And in that era, it was really beautiful because we were just learning. We were pretty much fresh out of high school and the pressure wasn't on yet. And so it was all about the craft and learning how to be in community with people, learning how be friends and learning everything new — but with the backdrop of us all being very serious about our music."

Acoustic Soul contained hits like "Brown Skin," written with Shannon Sanders and Mark Batson, and earned India seven Grammy nominations in 2002, including Album of the Year and Song of the Year for "Video." She wrote several tracks with her late collaborator, Blue Miller, such as "Back to the Middle" and "Ready for Love."

"At its best, when you're writing songs with somebody, you want them to think of things you would have never thought about, but that feel exactly like something you should have thought about," she said of Miller, a seasoned Nashville guitarist and songwriter. "And Blue did that all the time. 'Come Back to the Middle' was a moment, and then there's that round part. 'Come back, come back, come back to the middle,' the piece that goes around. I remember he came in the studio and said, 'What about this?' And I was just like, 'Oh, he is my favorite!'"

Acoustic Soul featured interludes where India paid homage to her musical heroes and African culture, with shout outs to Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway, and a list of jazz greats. She has continued to honor predecessors and civil rights leaders in many songs since, notably on 2019's "What If."

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India Arie (right) and Khari Cabral Simmons are pictured at Center Stage Atlanta in February 2023.

Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News

"I learned the beauty and the value in calling on your ancestors when I was about 18, because I grew up around the Pan-African community," she said. "There was that movement towards African spirituality and how we can integrate it into our lives as Black Americans. And so, when I was making Acoustic Soul, it was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life up to that point. The teachings that were inherent in being a part of that culture were, when times get hard, call on them. And so doing it musically just ended up being a 'me' thing. This is the confluence of all the things that I was."

And of course, she included a dedication on Acoustic Soul to one of her favorite musicians of all time, Stevie Wonder. 

"'Wonderful [Stevie Wonder Tribute]' was something that I did was like, 'I could be the first person to do this,' because Stevie Wonder, to me, was — he is still is — the epitome of a lot of things around music and culture and where music and spirituality meet, and he was a blueprint for a lot us, still is. And I remember thinking, 'I could do that first. I need to do it before somebody else does it.'" 

She says she rarely looks back, but honoring Acoustic Soul, which she made at 25, offers an opportunity to take stock of her life and career at 50 in a new way. 

"Maybe this is, psychologically, when you can start to look back," she said. "It just dawned on me the other day that somebody who's 40 years old [today] was a teenager when Acoustic Soul came out. I'm still processing what it means, but I'm happy to take all my flowers, and maybe at 25 years, I can."

India Arie, who is continuing her role as artist in residence at Georgia State University's Creative Media Institute,  performs Acoustic Soul in its entirety with the ATL Collective at Center Stage Atlanta on March 29 and April 3.