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The day that I read For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf is one that sticks out in my mind. I had just gotten out of my poetry writing class which met in the library and I had my list in hand of books I wanted to check out. One of the main positives of the tail of 2009/all of 2010 is my rediscovered love of reading, so having that much material at my fingertips and participating in an honor's English class were only exacerbating my love for the written word. Of the three items on my list, the only one I could find was Ntozake Shange's defining work, a choreo-poem concerning the experience of the African-American woman in early 20th century America.
Needless to say, I read it all in a couple of hours and absolutely devoured the language. It was stunning, unique, and a joy to read. Not long after, I heard news of Tyler Perry adapting the movie to the silver screen. Upon collecting myself from the tantrum that followed, I realized something. While Perry's movies tend to be, shall we say, creatively challenged, his soundtracks are usually solid if a tad melodramatic. I've yet to see the film version of For Colored Girls, but its soundtrack is yet another good effort in Perry's history. One of the most rewarding inclusions is the stark Sechita (A Senohora em Amarelo), an atmospheric spoken word piece featuring Anika Noni Rose. Accompanied by some tribal drums that are extremely reminiscent of coffee shop bongos, Rose tells the story of St. Louis resident Sechita, her trip to Mississippi to become a dancer, and the subsequent regret. It's a little dense and you'll have to run through it a handful of times to really get the meaning, but it's less than 2:00 and Rose makes the story come to live with her cool reading. It's an interesting inclusion that takes a chance and you can't hate on something that works. The cover of Four Women worried me because anyone who takes on a song from a classic artist like Nina Simone has some major cojones and it almost sets you up to fail because there's just so much to live up to. This cover isn't as spellbinding as the live version that was debuted on BET's Black Girls Rock special in November, but it's extremely organic and true to the original. With Simone herself on the first verse, her (sound-a-like) daughter on the second, Laura Izibor on the third, and Ledisi on the last, it's a pretty consistent run of talent, as all four are singers who bring enough grit and can "dirty up" their performances without things getting ugly. Portraying the struggles of four African-American women (world weary Aunt Sara, biracial Saffronia, seductive Sweet Thing, and fiery Peaches) with just the right amount of subtlety, it's the type of socially conscious, intelligent listen that a soundtrack of this magnitude requires. What More Can They Do just knocked me on my butt when I first listened to. I knew Laura Izibor before this soundtrack and I thought her debut album was pretty solid, but man, there's nothing with this amount of immediate emotional impact on it. This is more than just the typical Tyler Perry soundtrack you-will-not-take-away-my-happy anthem that was genetically designed to get a reaction. Izibor's bluesy, staggeringly soulful theme of defiance and staying strong is genuine and positive without resorting to the type of empty diva platitudes that you tend to expect on songs like this. It's an interesting mélange of sounds, fusing funk, blues, and soul with a solid hook to create the set's best number.
Another positive thing about the soundtrack is that it's not all woe-is-me, all-men-are-bad warcries that tend to try for the more obvious notes than they really should. Fortunately Estelle's lush All Day Long (Blue Skies) offers a little more balance to the proceedings, throwing a daydreaming jazz-y midtempo into the proceedings. It's the type of song that I could easily see on a future Estelle release, emotionally self-aware and extremely charming. Drenched in some appealing 70s soul style production, it's a breath of fresh air in its whimsicality, a sort of calm before the emotional storm that is the remaining record. Some of the lyrical content may be eye roll worthy on the first listen (plenty of imagery using clouds, blue birds, etc.), but this is just a light listen to get you in a good mood at the start of your day. It's fluffy and just a total feel good listen. While I knew most of the artists on the soundtrack, Zaki Ibrahim was one of the exceptions and her Ansomnia is a left field piece of the puzzle that stands out immediately. In Ansomnia, you have an 808-heavy bit of electronic soul that sounds like a more controlled take on Alicia Keys's Love is Blind. Whereas Keys had everything set to full blast, Ibrahim is a little less obvious, softly cooing over the swirling strings and stuttering bass with a nice delicateness. I also appreciate that they didn't go as far into the electronic arena as they could have; the base of the song is still rooted in r&b, there's just a whole different set of flourishes to absorb. I Know Who I Am is one of the few songs on the record that does absolutely nothing for me. The main problem is that I just don't feel it. As the closing song on an emotionally taxing set (and even more dramatic source material), this should make you want to get up out of your seat and testify, so to speak. Leona Lewis, while possessing a beautiful technical voice, has absolutely no soul to her music and everything ends up sounding like she's performing on a talent show. Just aesthetically, it's very solid, but it's a boring bit of adult contemporary mess that just doesn't work. On a soundtrack with some of the more eclectic women in r&b, why would you have someone so polished perform the final song? Do I think this should have been some out of tune shoutfest? No. I just want a song about self-esteem and finally making it through the garbage you've had to go through in your life to mean something instead of being an excuse to hit notes for no reason.
The main thing that I respect about Perry's soundtracks is the fact that they're typically extremely cohesive and not built around one superstar single that wasn't in the film. Take For Colored Girls; instead of a roster that reads like the BET Awards performance list from any given year, it's a gathering of every type of woman. My only complaint about the soundtrack is that it doesn't represent hip hop as well as it probably should, but with spoken word, opera, neo soul, and jazz all live and in effect, it's a forgivable offense. While For Colored Girls was blasted for the same faults that a Tyler Perry film usually possesses (poor writing, off characterization, melodrama), the soundtrack is a musical representation of the main idea of the source material. No matter whom you are, what you've been through, someone else has been through the same thing. You're not alone.
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