La Dona
La Dona
For sure,Teena Marie spent almost the entire previous decade in
limbo;releasing the typically New Jacked up Ivory as the decade began
and her nearly impossible to find Passion Play a few years later,a more
elaborate effort also with a lesser hip-hop flavor. She was raising her
daughter of course but when she re-emmerged....well it looks like neither
her previous label Epic nor Motown wanted anything to do with her.As
talented as she is her history with record companies is right up there with
Prince,George Michael and Gino Vannelli in terms of complication.
Although when she finally made up her mind to make new music she
decided to go for a sound that combined modern hip-hop/R&B with her
own unique jazzy soul sound.Well so what?W e've heard this story
before:well meaning "old school" R&B artist ends up trying to update their
music to appeal to modern audiences and ends up either falling flat on
their face,having to play second fiddle to full-of-themself rappers who
always seem to need to hog all the glory,or...both.Well in this case only on
the otherwise funky "Off The Chain" with Baby Birdman" does that happen.
Birdman,being one of the producers signed Teena to his Cash Money
company-a hip-hop label. But if Teena was going to become a "modern"
the mildly neglected jazz-hop scene would be the way to go for her. So
what you get here is a sound that is stripped down,has the hip-hop beats
(that seem to be required in some way s today) to please the Mary J and
Ashanti fans and plenty of dissonant horn and keyboard sounds.That's a
sound that is pretty much kept up for the majority of the album.The only big
wild card is this lady's incredible voice,writing and intelligent lyrics are very
far beyond even the best of todays modern R&B and hip-hop music and
doesn't seem to fit it somehow.One of the most impressive songs here is
"Makavelli Never Lied",an enthusiastic tune where Teena is having some
issues with love and describing the honesty of her heroes in
comparasin:Marvin Gaye,John Lennon and yes Makavelli.Other highlites
are "Recycle Love To Hate",her funky duet with Rick James "I Got You" as
well the the equally grooving "Honey Call","The Mackin' Game" with MC
Lyte and some terrifically jazzy moments such as "High Yellow Girl" "I'm
On Fire" and the brilliant "Black Rain". Because of the intense scope of the
lyrics as well as their mildly conceptual/biographical content one might
think this album would be overwelming.After all it do es fall into the
common CD trap of filling every digitally encoded bit on the disk with
music,even though all of it has much to offer.Even so "I'm Still In Love" and
"A Rose By Any Other Name" with Gerald Levert are sweet,soulful songs
right in the classic Lady T tradtion.While it's been a long time this
album,even if heavy on the modern twist features a whole lot of everything
that makes Teena Marie so great:thoughtful,reflective lyrics,a lot of soul
and funk with jazz on top of that. And considering she followed this up with
another great album Sapphire. That I will be reviewing at another time
but,luckily her comeback appears to be,from at least this new starting point
a huge success.
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