Her full name is India Arie Simpson. She was born on October 3rd, 1975.
She is a songwriter and singer from the United States.
India’s records were sold in more than 3.3 million copies across the United States. Also, she sold almost 10 million records throughout the world.
India Arie is a winner of four Grammy Awards and also a winner of Best R&B Album.
She was nominated 21 times for this prestigious music award.
India.Arie is how her artistic name is written, but often it is india.arie, as well.
Early life and career beginning
India’s place of birth is Denver, Colorado.
Her parents are Ralph Simpson and Joyce Simpson. Both of them encouraged India to pursue her dream of becoming a music star because they recognized her musical skills when India was just a little girl.
Joyce was a singer when she was young, and when she was just a teenager, she managed to sign a contract with a record label called Motown Records.
Today, Joyce is India’s stylist.
India’s father is a former basketball player who played in National Basketball Association (NBA) for about 10 years.
This popular singer is a middle child. Her older brother’s name is J’On, and her younger sister is Mary A Martin of Philadelphia PA.
It is interesting that DNA analysis of her blood showed that Indie is a descendant of the Kru people of Liberia, Mende people of Sierra Leone, as well as the Fula people of Guinea-Bissau.
When India was 13 years old, their parents divorced, and she moved with her mother and siblings to Atlanta, Georgia.
During her school days in Denver, India was practicing on various musical instruments.
When she was on the Savannah College of Art and Design, situated in Savannah, she showed the most interest in playing guitar.
Since then, she revealed herself as a songwriter and a performer.
After her first album, Acoustic Soul, was published, India stated, in one of the interviews, that when she began to feel her own sensitivity it made her understand people around her much better.
A scout from Universal/Motown signed a contract with India in 1999, and that’s when she met Kedar Massenburg, a former CEO of the Motown.
Today, India Arie lives in New York.
As an influential leader and visionary, India found herself on Oprah Winfrey’s list called SuperSoul 100. She participated on Songversation in 2017 when she performed on motivational cruises.
Musical career
Her debut album was released on March 27th, 2001. The album’s name was Acoustic Soul.
Acoustic Souls got very positive critics, and it was very successful.
After its debut, the album managed to reach the tenth place on the Billboard 200 in the United States, as well as on the third place of the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.
In just a couple of months, Acoustic Souls got acknowledgment by Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as a double platinum album.
This success was accomplished without intensive radio airplay and it was sold by the number of 2,180,000 copies just in the United States and three million copies throughout the world.
It also got certification from the British Phonographic Industry as golden, and from Music Canada as platinum.
Promotion of this album was at the same time when the single “Video” was released.
This single was commercially very successful, and it managed to reach the US Billboard 100 as number forty-seven.
The second single from this album was “Brown Skin”. It was not successful as “Video”, so it did not make on Billboard Hot 100, but in the United Kingdom, the song was very well accepted.
On their charts, it peaked at number 29.
“Peaceful World” was Arie’s duet with John Mellencamp, a popular rock singer, and guitarist.
This song was on John’s album “Cuttin’ Hands”, released in 2001.
Aire’s debut album got seven Grammy awards nominations in 2002, but it did not get any of them. She lost to Alicia Keys in five of seven categories in which she was nominated.
This ceremony was closed by India’s performance of song “Video”.
Cassandra Wilson, the jazz singer, made a duet with India, and this song was on Wilson’s album Belly of the Sun from 2002.
The success of her debut album was followed by her second one, “Voyage to India”, which was published on September 24th, 2002.
This album was also a great success. It was on the sixth place of the Billboard 200 chart, and on the first place of R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
Because of the fact that it was sold in 109,000 copies during the first week, RIAA certificated it as Platinum.
“Voyage to India” got some awards as well. Namely, was proclaimed as Best R&B Album at the Grammy Awards ceremony in 2003.
The song “Little Things” got an award on the same ceremony, as the Best Urban/Alternative Performance.
One of the songs from this album called “Get It Together”, was a soundtrack in numerous films, such as Brown Sugar from 2002, and Shark Tale from 2004.
Arie’s song “Just 4 2day”, was written for the needs of the first episode of The Tyra Banks Show. India appeared in Tyra’s debut on television on September 12th, 2005, where she performed this song.
Her performance of the song “What About the Child” was available on the Internet and for just one dollar this could be downloaded.
Arie did this as a support for the children who were victims of Rita and Katrina Hurricanes.
Stevie Wonder and India made a duet called “A Time to Love”, which was on Stevie’s album “A Time to Love” published on October 18th, 2005.
This song was written by India, and it got the nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in 2006.
In 2003, these two also made a duet which was an interpretation of “The Christmas Song”, performed by Mel Torme in 1944.
This rendition was made for the needs of retailer Target, i.e. as a commercial for this company. The song was also nominated for the same award as “A Time to Love”, and this was the first time that commercial song got a nomination for Grammy.
Her new album Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship, was sold in 161,000 copies in the first week after release. This was her best selling album up to that date.
It got Golden certification in August 2006 because of 730,000 copies that were sold in the US, and 1,300,000 throughout the world.
On the song “I Am Not My Hair”, Arie collaborated with Akon, and this song was the biggest success from this album. It reached number 97 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and also number 65 on the UK Singles Chart.
She appeared in The Oprah Winfrey Show on April 16th, 2007. In this episode, called “After Imus: Now What?”, Arie was a member of a jury.
India Arie made a duet song with Anthony David in 2008. The name of this song was “Words” and it was on his album Acey Duecy.
Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics was India’s next album, which was published on February 10th, 2009. It reached number 3 on the Billboard 200, and on the R&B chart, it was in second place.
This CD was made with collaboration with many artists, such as Keb Mo, Sezen Aksu, Musiq Soulchild, and Gramps Morgan. The music that was created by these musicians was meaningful, according to India, and that is precisely what she wanted this album to be.
She stated that this CD was the first that she wrote and sang without paying attention to what publicity would say.
The album was made in collaboration with Universal Records, shortly after she left Motown.
In 2009, at the VH1 Divas, Indie performed her song “Video” together with British singer Adele.
Arie was also one of over 70 musicians who sang “We Are the World: 25 for Haiti”, which they sang to help victims of the Haiti earthquake in 2010.
She performed on the song “Imagine”, which was on Herbie Hancock’s album The Imagine Project from 2010. Pink, Seal, Konono N˚1, Oumou Sangare, Jeff Beck and others also performed in this song.
In 2010, Arie featured as a guest on Carlos Santana rendition of the song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, originally performed by The Beatles. Also, on this song, Yo-Yo Ma is featuring, playing the cello.
Arie announced that she was working on the new project, i.e. her fifth album Songversation. This album was published on June 25th, 2013.
“6th Avenue” was the first single which was on this album, and it was published on November 4th, 2012, on iTunes. Producers of this song were, India Arie and Idan Raichen, a musician from Israel.
The second single from this album, called “Cocoa Butter” was also published on iTunes, on April 9th, 2013.
Album called Christmas with Friends was made in collaboration with pianist Joe Sample, and it was released in 2015.
The single “Breathe” India released in July 2016, and it was inspired by the last words of Eric Garner.
Arie performed this single on the ceremony of Soul Train Awards in November.
In the same year, Arie announced that she was working on her next album, Worthy.
Her new single “That Magic” was published in September 2018. This song was a leading single on her sixth album called “Worthy”, which was published in 2019.
Quick summary
Full name: India Arie Simpson
Date of birth: October 3rd, 1975
Birthplace: Denver, Colorado, United States
Age: 44
Profession: Singer, songwriter
Height: 1.70 m
Weight: 59 kg
Net worth: $4.5 million