India.Arie: Voyage to India

AS BY FAR THE MOST INTERESTING of the current crop of nu-soul divas, this second album from India Arie has come to assume huge importance in the year and a half since her Acoustic Soul debut began its progress towards two million sales. Recent follow-ups to previous landmark diva debuts didn't augur well: if Voyage to India were as much of a damp squib as Macy Gray's The Id or as unlistenable as Lauryn Hill's MTV Unplugged No 2.0, it might safely be assumed that the genre would retrench to the narrow, mannerist approach of Whitney, Mariah and Celine, with mere technique in the ascendant, and the style effectively emptied of deeper meaning.