IT'S always refreshing to speak to an artiste who doesn't attempt to sugarcoat the downside of the industry, or err on the side of caution when speaking about controversial issues.

India.Arie is one such artiste who isn't scared of telling it like it is. The politics of the music business? She grew tired of it. Her thoughts on black music? Black artistes are generally the trend-setters. And perhaps most shockingly: Her 2006 collaboration with Akon, I Am Not My Hair? She didn't want to do it.

"I'm an artiste and I produce my music," Arie explained. (Working with Akon), that's not a choice that I would have made. Just on the creative side, it didn't make sense to me. It made sense on the business side to them (the label) but from the creative side, as a producer, it didn't make sense to me. That song is nothing like the original version I did with Pink. That made sense to me, because Pink is my friend and I like her music. The song is called I Am Not My Hair, so I thought of my friend with the pink hair! And she's a woman, so it felt organic, you know. But the business side made it so the version with Pink didn't happen, and the Akon version happened instead. But out of everyone I could choose in the world, no I wouldn't have chosen him."

Freedom

Arie's straight-talking nature is probably the result of a new-found sense of freedom. Having moved to a new musical home, namely, renowned label Motown, and having launched her own label, Soulbird Music, Arie is pretty damn happy right now.

This is a stark contrast to how she felt between the release of her 2006 album, Testimony: Vol. 1 Life & Relationship and her new offering Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics. In fact, Arie revealed earlier this year that she took a break after the release of her 2006 album because the politics of the industry left her feeling "emotionally unwell".

"I didn't like what was going on with my career," she said. "I didn't like how the politics was making me feel. I grew tired of it. It felt like it was more about the business than the art and I thought that if it was going to be like that then I wasn't going to do it. So I took chances to make things change and they did change. I'm on a different label and that's why this album sounds different because I did what I wanted to do this time. For a while, I wasn't doing it for the love of the art, but I am now."

In addition to feeling "emotionally unwell", Arie revealed that, at one point, she became "tired of the challenge of fitting into someone else's paradigm of a black artiste." Does she feel that the industry has changed since her debut in 2001, in terms of how it views black artistes?

"I don't know," she admitted. "I think that every year there's something that's 'the hot thing'. From my experiences, the label is always going to ask their artiste to get on the bandwagon of 'the hot thing'. That's always been the case, probably since the Motown sound first came around.

"But I think that as far as being a black artiste, in my opinion, black music sets all the trends and changes happen faster because we're always on the cutting edge. So one year, it's neo-soul and it's cool to be eccentric and to have your instrument in front of you. Then the next year you can do that, but you've got to put Akon on your song.

"The following year, you can do that but then you've got to add a little bit of what the hottest thing is. I don't think there's anything wrong with that if it's what you want to do. If it's not what you want to do, like when I did the song with Akon, then that's not cool."

If Akon didn't realise that Arie didn't want to work with him, he surely must get the point now! Another issue on which Arie is keen to set the record straight is the issue of her image. While the world has always recognised her as an 'earth sister' (head-wrap wearing, not afraid to shave her head bald, long skirts, empowered woman, etc), Arie admits that she's just as much the girly girl when it comes to her appearance.

Empowered female

"As far as me having an image as the empowered female, that's not an image that I cultivated and said, 'that's how I want people to see me,'" she laughed. But if people think that I'm an empowered female then cool. It is what it is. I think it's funny because I wear tight jeans and little T-shirts and mini dresses just like every other woman does, but people don't see me like that. It's cool - I can't control what anyone thinks of me. And even trying to do the sex-pot thing - I don't know how to do that!"