There's no doubting the purity of India.Arie's intentions. On her fourth album, Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Polictics, she examines the struggles of everyday folk in towns from New Orleans to Mogadishu over warm neo-soul arrangements. But her lyrics do the job much less elegantly. ''They tried to put this stick in between my wheels,'' she sings in ''Psalms 23.'' ''But they can't stop my motivation.'' The result feels like a lecture from the class goody-goody: instructive yet tedious. C+
Download This: Listen to tracks from the new album on the singer's MySpace
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