The album received positive comments and achieved commercial success. India’s most famous album is her debut album, “Acoustic Soul,” released on March 27, 2001. She told the press that she got a direct result from writing songs, as when she started tapping into her own sensitivity, she began to understand people better. Her schooling in Denver helped her achieve success in her musical instruments, and her passion for guitar led to a personal discovery about songwriting and performing. When India was 13, her parents divorced, and her mother moved the family to Atlanta, Georgia. Arie is African-American and descends from the Mende people of Sierra Leone, the Kru people of Liberia, and the Fula people of Guinea-Bissau. Her mother was a Motown music artist who had an opening performance for Stevie Wonder and Al Green when she was a teenager. Her parents are Joyce and Ralph Simpson, who encouraged her musical skills in her younger years. Without the many concrete references to the great R&B music of the past, Acoustic Soul would be a purely modern gem, but as Arie is determined to pay her debts up front, it's much more, and that is admirable.India Arie is a singer-songwriter from Denver, Colorado. Betraying youthful vulnerability while at the same time projecting strength, confidence, and uncanny insight for a 25-year-old singer/songwriter, Arie wraps herself effortlessly around the deep, funky sensuality of 'Brown Skin,' and stands tall in defiance of pop-fashion expectations on the irresistibly catchy 'Video.' The uplifting 'Faith, Courage, Wisdom' rides along on a euphoric chorus, and the plainly autobiographical 'Back to the Middle' recounts an emotional and spiritual coming of age. And despite the uniqueness of being a guitar-based R&B album, it is Arie's thick, sandy voice that shares star billing with her exceptional lyrics.

When she name-checks those artists no longer with us that she claims as influences ( Ma Rainey, Miles Davis, Karen Carpenter, Charley Patton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Donny Hathaway, etc.) in three separate interludes, you have no doubt she is looking back as well as forward, even going so far as to invoke Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come.' But Acoustic Soul is at its best when the arrangements are deliberately modern. As one of the most promising neo-soul artists yet to emerge in the past few years, India.Arie casts her lot with the best artists of her label's storied history, playing deeply introspective songs laced with glistening acoustic guitar, churchy organ, and smooth, supple beats.

Famous india arie songs