Acoustic Soul – Celebrating a Global Spiritual Community

Frank Fitzpatrick 11/22/2011

Over the weekend I saw Neo-Soul star India Arie perform. Although I have had the good fortune of meeting 5-time Grammy Award winner India and seeing her in a variety of settings in the past, including more intimate music industry events and a pairing with one of my life-long musical heroes Stevie Wonder, this was quite different than the glossy productions in large auditoriums or the Hollywood insider track.

This time it was back to church. Not your typical church, mind you. With the religious dogma often associated with the term, it may be misleading to refer to this space as a church at all. I would probably be more correct to call it a spiritual community center – one known as Agape, founded and headed by our friend – a beautiful and generous spirit himself – Michael Beckwith.

India Arie came out of sabbatical for a night to join Michael, his musical director and wife Rickie Byars-Beckwith, the acclaimed Agape Choir and an all-star band of esteemed LA musicians and singers to help celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Agape community. And Ms. Arie was clearly proud, as well as equally humbled to do so.

Through that humility, and in the center of all that love around her, she glowed. More than simply perform, she allowed the music and energy of the spirit to come through her – at times surprising even herself. She was truly the star of the night to those witnessing, while one of the most grateful attendees in her own right.

I have always loved India’s beautiful spirit, her entrancing voice and her personal simplified approach to Soul music that turns a concert hall into your living room and makes you just want to have her around. But this time I saw a different India emerging – a rising star stepping beyond her own stories of relationship and personal growth to turn her attention and ours to the a larger community – a global family, and using the music flowing through her to unite us in spirit and help us somehow feel both included and connected.

The expanding worldview was not surprising, however. India’s last performance in Los Angeles was as part of a collaboration with Israeli superstar Idan Raichel, entitled the Open Door Project. The two artists had been working on an album for some time and doing shows together around the world in the process. Some of the songs India perform at Agape were actually born of that collaboration.

I can only applaud when a pop star chooses to channel their talent and use their global spotlight to support a cause much larger than their own. The combination of fame and talent, as we all know, is a great way to bring people to any occasion, especially one with higher intention. And music is one of the most powerful ways to open their hearts and connect an audience more deeply to their own humanity and to that of others around the world, once they are listening. For many artists, like India, the shift to this place comes out of experience of unfulfilled expectations and being forced, usually for their own re-connection, to return to that original source and inspiration that provide the seed for that growth to fame in the first place.

The video below is India speaking at TED about her own spiritual and creative process from her childhood process through her meeting with Idan and her current relationship with her creative source and own truth and spiritual center.

The video below is from a live, 1-take session of Beautiful Flower, that shows India in her raw innocence – the imperfect perfection of humanity captured in song.