Macy Gray

Macy Gray's got a voice that's rough like Bob Marley, but sweet like Curtis Mayfield. However, in her own unique style, she drives hard at the mutual passions of pleasure and pain that lives up to the standards of the legends. She delivers her thesis On How Life Is with tales of hard fucking ("Caligula" and "Sex-O-Matic"), getting high ("Do Something") and killing "the bitch" who exploited her man ("I've Committed Murder"). Gray's vibe is raw and dirty, and definitely very ‘60s. She sees rock and funk as twin offsprings from the same parents, R&B, and raised under the same religion of music. Her fluency in both genres gives her sound an extra weight of heavy soul that is rare either the Lauryn Hills or the Aaliyahs of our time. However, what Gray has in common with all them is the quality of her production. With a full band, horns and string section, the sound of On How Life Is is rich, but sometimes so dense that it drowns Grady out of the mix. That only means that you have to listen to this brilliant album a few times more than you would with others.