Real Health Guide to Black Wellness

Strength, Courage, & Wisdom
India.Arie has been called everything in the book: Self-righteous. A head wrap-wearing phony. Oprah with a guitar.  Strength, Courage, & Wisdom
by Tomika Anderson
India.Arie has been called everything in the book: Self-righteous. A head wrap-wearing phony. Oprah with a guitar. A lone, spiritual songbird in a roost of materialistic chickenheads, her ethereal messages of self-love—though championed by fans—often try the patience of critics. “People need to know they are loved,” the 30-year-old singer explains of her spiritual approach to Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship, her third album. “They need to know that their lives are worth something. I want my music to remind them of that.” Fortunately, a higher calling helps to keep Arie’s shorn head up. As her lyrics profess, she is indeed not her hair—or any of that other image-obsessed nonsense. And at a time when HIV cases among blacks are at an all-time high and Africa’s plight is yet a blip on America’s emotional radar, Arie has embraced a cause much greater than herself.