One thing you need to know about Ledisi is that she’s a storyteller. Yes, you can hear it in her records, but it hits different when you know the stories behind them.
That is what we experienced when the singer-actress sat with VIBE’s Then And Now. In all of her unfiltered, vibrant glory, Ledisi opened up about records like “Alright,” “Pieces Of Me,” “Perfect Stranger,” and more. Whether the song came during a moment when she was ready to throw in the towel or when she wrote the anthem for love and liberation that she needed first, each story marks a specific moment in time cemented in her music.
With “Alright”— a top 20 single from her 2007 LP, Lost & Found— she confessed that the song came during a period when she was done with the music industry. “They told me I wasn’t pretty enough or good enough to be a part of this industry. Everything was about looks and during that time, Rex Rideout [the song’s cowriter/producer], was like, ‘Led, you got to stay in this. And just write how you feel,’” she recalled.
Ledisi did just that. She went back to her then-apartment in New York City and wrote the song that Rex described as “honest and raw.” It ultimately earned her three Grammy nominations, including Best New Artist. It remains a staple at her live shows and will forever be a “meditation” for her.
“The song is written about my struggles with being in the industry,” she explained. “Or just surviving life, ready to give up, not sure what’s going to happen. I kept knowing there’s hope. It’s going to be alright […] and I wrote that out, I sung that out, and people got it. But during that time I didn’t know [that] my honesty [and] authenticity [would be] what’s going to make me known as the artist that I am.”
The soulful songstress was just as amped up to reflect on “Pieces Of Me.”
“Every time I sing it live, I know the response,” she teased. “The women and the way that I present the song, reminding them of how powerful they are and never to lose the walk, whatever your walk is […] It’s okay to be vulnerable, but also don’t forget your power. The way I present it live, I see the response. I don’t need a gold record to tell me the importance of this one song. I see it every night. When it comes on just those first chords, it’s like somebody rising up at church. That’s when I know I won. I win every time I see that.”
This was just a taste of what Ledisi told us about some of her biggest hits. For more, including which male vocalist is her dream collaborator for a duet and how another crooner nearly replaced Kenny Lattimore on “Perfect Stranger,” watch her full Then And Now segment above.
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