Record Rack

*** India.Arie, “Acoustic Soul,” Motown. “I’m not the average girl from your video/My worth is not determined by the price of my clothes,” purrs singer-songwriter India.Arie in her sparkling Everywoman anthem “Video.” Deftly lighthearted, this poke at hip-hop culture’s materialistic majority is pointed yet never venomous, reflecting the Atlanta-based musician’s way of emphasizing the positive, not to mention the transcendent, on her debut collection.

Arie’s bohemian appearance and spirituality recall such modern soul stars as Erykah Badu and Meshell Ndegeocello. But as her shout-outs to various “ancestors” reveal, she’s inspired by artists ranging from Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye to Roberta Flack and Bonnie Raitt. Indeed, while her messages are uplifting, the music is even more striking. The album’s title aptly describes its lush-to-spare tapestry of R&B;, folk, hip-hop and jazz, shot through with jangling acoustic guitar, smooth funk bass, soulful harmonies and pulsing organ.

It’s a fitting backdrop for Arie’s treatises on honesty, sacrifice and seeking balance, which could have become tediously preachy in lesser hands, and do become a bit repetitious. Yet she also pursues more immediate pleasures in such romantic songs as “Brown Skin,” a slow-funk celebration of African American beauty. Even when lustful, however, Arie takes it higher, reveling so in the all-consuming sensuality of real love that she implicitly rejects rap’s cult of bootyliciousness.

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.