★★★★★
In terms of high concept projects, this is a no-brainer: Have one of today's top contemporary Soul stylists, Leela James, record music made famous by and in spirit of the legendary R&B singer Etta James. The two vocalists share similar musical personas as proud and stubborn women who artfully express raw emotions. Of course, a straight remake of Etta's songbook would be stale. Etta did them so well that there needs to be a way to rework them to make them more contemporary...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-09-20
★★★★★
Leela James marks Stax debut with a remarkable album, a retro-soul/hip-hop hybrid that Mary J Blige patented some 20 years ago. But James has more vocal range than Blige (James' vibe is more like '70s-era Candi Staton) and blasts out of the gate with the phenomenal mid-tempo dance floor anthem I Ain't New to This. Cookie-cutter soul divas, you have all been served notice.
- www.hour.ca
2011-01-10
★★★★★
Anointing by James Brown as the next torchbearer of funky soul can be heady stuff for a young singer, but there are moments on Let's Do It Again, the sophomore project of Leela James, where you understand why the "Godfather of Soul" was so taken with the Compton spitfire with the booming voice. The underground phenomenon's debut single, "Music," gave longtime listeners the inside scoop on what kind of soul floated Ms...
- www.soultracks.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
Leela James opens her third studio album, My Soul, with a Gerrard Baker production (Toni Braxton, Masta Ace) declaring "I'm Not New To This" with her requisite funky soul and something of a braggart's rap. Indeed, she's not. Ten years before her debut project, A Change Is Gonna Come, announced the scrappy soul belter to the world, a teenage Leela was being featured on '90s soundtracks like Jason's Lyric and doing demo and session work for L.A. producers...
- www.soultracks.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
Leela James wants you to know that she's paid her dues. Fair enough; My Soul is her third album and her first for Stax, and despite moderate success and some awards in the past, fame along the lines of Erykah Badu's or Macy Gray's has eluded her. Her new record might go some distance toward correcting this, but if it does, it will be due to James' strong presence and voice, not because of the songs or arrangements...
- www.popmatters.com
2010-11-10
★★★★★
Leela James - she of big hair and big voice - has been hailed by The New York Times as the new Tina Turner. While Leela still has a long way to go before she can even be mentioned in the same breath as Tina, she is definitely a new force to be reckoned with. Her songs, written and produced by D'Angelo-influenced Raphael Saadiq, have way more soul than the Kanye West penned-and-produced numbers...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
Leela James wants you to know that she's paid her dues. Fair enough; My Soul is her third album and her first for Stax, and despite moderate success and some awards in the past, fame along the lines of Erykah Badu's or Macy Gray's has eluded her. Her new record might go some distance toward correcting this, but if it does, it will be due to James' strong presence and voice, not because of the songs or arrangements...
- www.popmatters.com
2010-07-09
★★★★★
Track Listing: I Ain't New To This;So Cold;The Fact Is; I Want It All;Party All Night; Mr. Incredible--Ms. Unforgetable; Tell Me You Love Me;Let It Roll; Supa Luva; If It's Wrong; It's Over. Personnel: Leela James: vocals; Raheem Devaughn: vocals (4); Tiffany Wilson: background vocals; Milton Fletcher, Jr...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2010-07-01
★★★★★
Kanye West, Raphael Saadiq, and Wyclef Jean endorsed this 26-year-old L.A. native's 2005 debut, A Change Is Gonna Come, but her self-produced second effort stars Betty Wright's "Clean Up Woman," seven-minute ownership of Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is," and a bit of Badu on "Miss You," curvaceous as James' takedown of Angela Bofill, Bootsy Collins, and Al Green ("Simply Beautiful").
- www.austinchronicle.com
2009-07-21
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