“There’s only today. You only have today, so I’m gonna just write the songs I wanna write and Imma sing what I wanna sing. Imma say what I wanna say. Imma write and publish essays and that’s what got me on this path.”
BlackDoctor.org: How did you decide on the title Medicine for this project and what was your intention for the album?
India.Arie: I decided on Medicine because that is my intention. My mission statement for almost 20 years that I’ve been out in the world with my music, my mission statement has been to spread love, healing, and peace and joy through the power of words and music. But then like we just talked about, the more I develop and come into myself the more I realize that I can say what I want to say. There’s a little note inside the CD…but it talks about how I wrote these songs for a person in my life who was battling cancer.”
“When somebody’s sick like that you always think ‘Well what can I do? ‘ and you say, you know, ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I hope you feel better’ and ‘speedy recovery.’ We don’t know what to do or say. And so, I told her I don’t know what to say and she said, “Sing to me!” So I wrote these songs for her. And now with everything that’s happening, just in the world and all the fear that people are carrying, for all the different reasons that we’re carrying all this fear now, I wanted to offer something that would administer to the fear and the pain that a lot of people are in about different things.”
“I just wanted to offer what I have. Music is what I have and it’s what I do and it’s always what I’ve done and I’ve always done it as an offering. But again, coming into myself I did it more boldly as an offering and I also did it with more intention as an offering because I know that I can’t say what anybody’s issues are but I know we all have them. But I only know that because I’m maturing.”
“What I’m understanding – the way it’s [SongVersation: Medicine] being received – IS like a medicine, so apparently setting that intention worked. I didn’t know how people would receive it because you know a lot of people don’t like to be calm. People like to be busy and they want to move…”
“I thought that some people would think it’s boring – and maybe some people do – but I’m not paying attention to that. I’m paying attention to the people who are like ‘I never slow down; this music made me feel a certain way’ or ‘I really like this. She is speaking to my soul.’ THAT is all I am focused on AND those songs are very special to me. They’re like the only songs I’ve ever had that I always thought these are just for me. I never thought I would share some of those, but now felt like the right time and the right way.”
BlackDoctor.org: “Just Let It Go” is one of my favorite songs on the album. What space were you writing that from? For your friend or from your own personal collective experiences with letting go?
India.Arie: “One, this was not one of the songs I had wrote for her. I wrote it in a different context. Two, it just so happened that there is a such thing as coincidence, which I don’t believe, but it so happened that the cover story for O! Magazine this month is called ‘Let It Go’. And so I sent a link of the album to Oprah before the cruise. I said, “I’ll see you next week, but I saw the cover of O Magazine and I want you to hear this and pay special attention to this song.”
“I write all my songs based on things I know and what I go through, but I’m learning just as the years go by and as I mature that there are human conditions that we all share. Everyone has things that they have a hard time letting go of like divorce, or a breakup or being wronged by someone.”
“Since 2012 I’ve developed this process called The SongVersation Practice, which is what the SongVersation Practice Journal is about. And so that is a spiritual process for how you do your life’s work. It is for songwriting but it’s also just your life’s work. It’s for writers, or people who do anything. It’s the process of breathing and stretching, prayer and meditation and then you go into your work.”
“Just Let It Go” is what came out of the SongVersation Practice, which for me speaks to the power of the SongVersation Practice.”
“I’ve had a chance to meet Nelson Mandela and Maya Angelou which were my heroes. Those are my heroes. Two of them, but my two main heroes. And I asked both of them how do you forgive, because I was going through…