Mixing up joy and purpose in the Bowl

“We’re interpreting Fela Kuti in a different way, because we can’t do it the way he did,” Yerba Buena leader Andres Levin told Sunday’s Hollywood Bowl audience. Maybe not, but the material by the late African music legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti played by Yerba Buena, abetted by an array of R&B; and hip-hop guests, did capture the spirit of Fela with equal measures of liveliness and conscience.

It was a fitting opening hour for the groove-celebrating program “Soul of Africa,” hosted by KCRW-FM’s Garth Trinidad and headlined by neo-soul singer-songwriter India.Arie. Drawing from the 2002 Fela tribute album “Red Hot + Riot,” the set featured the New York-based octet with Meshell Ndegeocello on bass and vocals, Money Mark on keyboards, turntablist DJ Realm and positive-rap duo Blackalicious.

The stage fairly vibrated with horns, keyboards, guitar, bass, percussion, drums, saxophone and voices, each bringing something proficient to the party, from soulful, muted trumpet to thumping funk bass, rolling rap to soaring singing.

Many tunes had messages addressed to the powerful, such as the Ndegeocello-sung “Gentleman,” in which she ad-libbed lyrics admonishing Tony Blair to “check your soul.” While the music remained hypnotically danceable and celebratory, the lyrics were often sobering, and the ensemble drove that contrast home with the closing “Shuffering and Shmiling” and its haunting refrain “AIDS is killing Africa, AIDS is killing Africans.”

India.Arie’s 75-minute set spoke of social consciousness and love in softer yet insistent tones with such numbers as the respect-demanding “Talk to Her,” from her “Voyage to India” album. But after all the sonic colors, her musical palette of folky hip-hop soul and Stevie Wonder-esque R&B-pop; felt muted, despite her sextet’s prowess. Still, after nearly feeling derailed by her early success, the acclaimed young artist showed an increasing ability to blend professionalism with her own ideals.

Any naivete in the appealingly bubbly singer’s demeanor was offset by her savvy material. She started with a snippet of the Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreamin’,” done up with her “acoustic soul” plinky chords and sliding harmonizing. She also offered such crowd-pleasers as “Summertime” and the Cyndi Lauper hit “True Colors,” as well as some of her own better-known works -- “Strength, Courage & Wisdom,” the sensual “Brown Skin” and the hit “Video.”

She sat alone on stage with her guitar to venture two new tunes, one a true-love song and another a socially conscious number. Both leaned more toward the painfully sincere than her more developed material, but they weren’t overwrought. And they did prove she was willing to break even a mold she made for herself.