July 21-27, 2005

music

Jaguar Reloaded

Philly's gritty, pretty queen of soul divorces her record label (and the "neo" label).

by A.D. Amorosi

The last time we saw Jaguar Wright — Philly's mistress of soul from The Roots' extended family — she was on the cover. Waiting. Her debut, Denials, Delusions and Decisions, was, after a long holdup, just getting its due. With a raw sound, frankly sexual lyrics, and her sweet voice's ability to hop octaves, Wright could do no wrong. Except, she got tagged "neo-soul." And her label, MCA's Motive imprint, went under while she was recording her follow-up. Since then, Wright bought out the unused second record and refashioned its best moments as Divorcing Neo 2 Marry Soul for the Artemis label. Now living in Jersey with her husband and two kids, Wright's got a plan, not only to reclaim what's hers, but to save soul for the future.

City Paper: How was making this CD different from making the last one?
Jaguar Wright: This project was a Sagittarius — half man, half horse.

CP: And the horse is still kicking?
JW: You know it. [Divorcing Neo 2 Marry Soul] was a science project. Started out as one thing and became something else. This was the compromise album I made for MCA. Guess I was too raw and hard-edged for them.

CP: What did you smooth most?
JW: The allover rawness went. Whether I'm coming at your neck or coming at your heart, everything I do is technically very beautiful. I'm not sloppy. It's just the approach that's raw. I may be a soul singer. But unlike a lot of others, I was an MC, a rapper, first. I just happen to use my voicebox. I enunciate. Being a singer allows me to exploit and explore an MC's message more. I wasn't going to be a little R&B girl.

CP: Then MCA/Motive folded. Morphed into Geffen.
JW: Which I got off of, thank God. After I signed to Artemis and got back my material, I knew this wasn't the record I would have put out. Not a second record — so I went back and recorded more. But there were some great things to be found through the compromise. So I took what was still beautiful of the compromise and made Divorcing.

CP: So you split the difference. Funny. But the first record also didn't have an easy birth — held up forever by the label.
JW: Not at all easy. It's the way of the world. Yet, what I went through was no different than what Patti LaBelle, Millie Jackson or Tina Turner did. Labels had to let extraordinary talents shine through — they didn't have a choice. But once you heard them you couldn't feel the same way about anyone else; someone just pretty like a Tammi Terrell.

CP: Did the term "neo-soul" make your skin crawl when you first heard it applied to you and yours?
JW: Not crawl. It was a necessary evil. But why "neo"? Neo's from The Matrix. Oh now, we gotta be gimmicky. Why not just, "next soul"? That's what we were. The next generation. It was a dishonest term. Then, to follow that, you had artists who couldn't be furthest from soul included in the list. Like Res. One of my dearest friends. But the girl's a rocker; a black girl with twists in her hair. Alicia Keys? She's a pop artist who used soul as a foreground. Once Usher got included, it became insulting. The true soul artists were the ones who never benefited from that title.

CP: So it was sort of easy to separate from the tag, from the label. But it couldn't have been so easy to separate yourself from your family and friends in The Roots. That had to be impossible.
JW: I'm glad you asked me that, since no one has bothered. What I want everyone to know is that they are my family, every last one of them, as if they're my flesh and blood. They're my heart and I hope I'm still theirs. But what I'm doing is no different than a little sister growing up, going to college, moving out and getting her own apartment … her own life.

CP: And you're responsible for your own actions, your own aesthetics, with no one to blame. So then the changes are yours. The first change I hear is that the frankness is there, but the sexuality itself is tamed.
JW: My perspective: I got older and wiser. I see things black and white but with a lot of grays. You like red. And you can like pink. It's not the shovel or the ditch.

CP: You're funnier too. Or at least more comfortable being so. As on "One More Drink."
JW: I'm absolutely looser. That's what getting the monkey off your back is about. That first serious album was filled with 22 years of ass-kicking pain, confusion, self-loathing, denials, delusions. … (laughs) People were telling me I didn't belong in the biz. Fuck you. I belong. That first record was like getting raped and getting pregnant — you want the child. You wanna walk away. But you've gotta get it out. Then you love it — you see the beauty.

CP: Some people say they like you angrier. But you make a point of going the other way on "Let Me Be the One" — "I can be an argument/ I'd rather be your heaven-sent." I like the sentiment.
JW: Completely. That's what makes this record different: sentiment. I can be the bad mom or the good mom. That's the second record. The third one is nearly done. Damn Damn Damn. It's incredible. And the fourth one — The Diplomat of Dysfunction — that's going to define the rest of my life. I want Bootsy. Lenny Kravitz. I want to reintroduce good old-fashioned black rock 'n' roll to audiences. Honest rebel music.

CP: Is that why you covered "Woman 2 Woman?"
JW: It was necessary. Shirley Brown was one of the greats. Our kids need to know we came from music like her. When she died that song died with her. Why? The relationship in that song is as relatable as it was then — everyone is cheating. And women are left to carry the baggage of emotional betrayal. That's part of my purpose.

CP: What? To pass along the message?
JW: Yes. The harder you try to live right, the more others want you to live wrong. I'm a martyr. And I know I am. I've got a purpose. And I know I do. I'm a voice from the past and it's my job to make certain the lineage lives on — the honesty and heart of soul music. If I don't do it … nobody will. And if somebody does, then I'm a punk. I don't want to be one of those women in a bar at age 60 with the shouldabeens.

CP: So where will you be at 60?
JW: Telling you I got some things to say and asking you if you're sick of me yet.

Jaguar Wright plays Sun., July 24, 8 p.m., $18.50, with Bilal, Theater of Living Arts, 336 South St., 215-922-1011, www.theateroflivingarts.net.

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Jaguar Wright
Divorcing Neo 2 Marry Soul
(Artemis)
Like her hero Tina Turner says at the beginning of "Proud Mary" ("You see, we never ever do nothing nice and easy/We always do it nice and rough") Wright seeks separation from the rounded edges and smoothed surfaces of neo-soul. For the most part, she gets it — despite occasional leaps into polished-brass arrangements and sentimental foolishness ("Let Me Be the One"). Wright's ability to wrap herself around emotion without leaning into the lachrymose is what keeps her shiniest soul-phonics raw and unbridled. Along with turning the mid tempo funk of "Free" into a tall tale about leaving her man and her record company, this been-here-before vocalist tears into anyone set to do her wrong. The mistress of "Woman2Woman," the cheater of "Do Your Worst" — no one is left unscathed and un-slapped by Wright's high, mighty bitchiness.