Happy 25th Anniversary to Amel Larrieux’s debut solo album Infinite Possibilities, originally released February 15, 2000.
My heart just sank. I drummed my fingers for days, months, two lifetimes, and half a forever waiting for Groove Theory to return. After frontwoman Amel Larrieux and silent partner Bryce Wilson established themselves with the smash “Tell Me” from their self-titled 1995 debut, a throng of fans like me held their breath for a sophomore follow-up.
While we waited, Wilson got busy producing Toni Braxton and Mary J. Blige; Larrieux casually paired up with The Roots on Illadelph Halflife (1996) and Sade side project Sweetback (1996). A couple Groove Theory holdovers showed up on soundtracks, but ultimately, their gold-selling first CD would also be their last. Wilson tried rebooting the group with a new singer, but after one tune “4 Shure” turned out to be a swing-and-miss, Columbia shelved their entire album.
That left Larrieux in limbo, until one day her familiar voice resurfaced, cueing a collective exhale from the throng and me. When her single “Get Up” floated onto airwaves, it was more than a raised-fist salute to the working class. It was her creative reset. In place of Groove Theory’s streetwise hip-hop breaks, she installed snappy drums, electric piano, bass with a hump, and some new skills. When we last heard Larrieux, her mezzo-soprano still had the cool of Sade, but she wasn’t slicing through the air with such ferocious facility and musicianship. And this light work was only her introduction.
Rather than use Sony’s connections to buy some hot producer’s sound wholesale, Larrieux favored a closed system of herself and husband Laru Larrieux. From their ink and instruments came Infinite Possibilities, a boundless exploration of transcontinental jazz-soul that defined Larrieux’s unique soundprint without losing itself in the currents of neo soul.
And yes, I know that term is a catch-all. Anytime a jazz-educated vocalist cloaks themselves in urban beats, the easiest thing to call it is “neo soul.” Larrieux could easily clasp hands with the 2000 sound of Erykah Badu and Jill Scott, but didn’t quite fit in their lanes. She was more a distillation of Ella Fitzgerald, D’Angelo, Zap Mama, and Herbie Hancock with a dash of Ravi Shankar.
To match this sound, she also presented a diverse image. On the azure cover, captured by Hosea Johnson, she looks like Joni Mitchell on Blue (1971) (minus the soul-crushing heartbreak). Here and elsewhere, her once-bouncy curls get collected into two braids that lay over full-length, bohemian-style dresses and ornate jewelry of indeterminate origin. It was hard to stereotype her multiracial heritage and French surname. Some artists just want to represent their neighborhoods; Larrieux personified hemispheres.
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The next single “Sweet Misery” pitched her broad ethos as close to R&B as Infinite gets. An elegy to forbidden love and its ensuing regret, this tune hangs in the air like smoke from a long cigarette (“I gave you your freedom / But that’s not the end of that / ‘Cause you reached in and stole my heart / And now I want it back”). Where “Get Up” barely made it inside the Top 40 of the R&B/Hip-Hop singles chart, “Sweet Misery” was quickly shuffled from its #81 peak despite, or maybe because of its sophistication. Charts weren’t what earned Larrieux critical raves though.
Multiple elements comprise the balance of Infinite Possibilities. It keeps a natural, human sensibility even in programmed elements. Personnel are minimal but wickedly skilled. Herb Powers’ expert mastering grounds most tunes in a bassy presence, lending a street feel without gutter residue. And then there are passages of dueling tablas (“I N I”), the drone of a tanpura and flecks of sitar (“Shine”), or a rainstick’s gentle wash (“Weather”).
This prepares the way for some of Larrieux’s best arrangements committed to tape. In the background, she may quilt herself into textures that move instinctively, sensually like large troupes of lithe dancers. Her ad libs are agile, sometimes percussive and insistent, or mourned and doleful. She knows how to command her energy without fatiguing the ear. And it's not enough to just “sing pretty.”
Content wise, “Get Up,” “Searchin’ for My Soul” and “I N I” concern social justice and spiritual alignment. “Searchin’” examines secondhand trauma after violence in one’s community (“Every time one of us goes down / It’s like I’m lookin’ at my own blood on the ground”), while “I N I” takes aim at oppressive beauty standards and religious hegemony as barriers to self-esteem.
Even while under the weight of the world, optimism floats to the surface. The life lessons of “Shine” steel her will (“Experience has taught me / What I need to take me far / Now I can mingle with my enemies / ‘Cause now I know who they are”). Falling along the same lines, “Infinite Possibilities” is hushed and meditative (“He’s got infinite possibilities / I can see them now / It’s the unbroken chain of his past by which he’s bound”). Every time I hear Amel’s daughter Sky sing with her mom at the start of “Weather,” it could make the sun rise at midnight.
Her best chance at commercial crossover was the closing piano ballad “Make Me Whole.” This earnest and unyieldingly romantic fan favorite became a staple wedding song, and a tradition she would revisit with subsequent love professions like “For Real,” “No One Else,” and “I Do Take.” Sony went as far as issuing a “Make Me Whole” remix with full band and new vocals to increase its appeal, but then—seemingly all at once—the label halted any further investment in Larrieux.
“I never had the sense of being a marquee name when I was on a major label,” Larrieux later confessed to Billboard’s Gail Mitchell. “I had signed one of those uncommonly long deals but we had a somewhat different vision that needed to be fulfilled in a different surrounding. And the major-label surrounding just wasn't working for us anymore.”
Perhaps Infinite Possibilities set itself apart too well. One could say it was too jazzy for R&B, and too R&B for jazz. (Let’s pretend a biracial woman has never heard anything like that before.) But also, a general eschewal of hip-hop hampered its reach at a time when rap increasingly dominated radio. Why then was the official Thread Had Fun Remix of “Get Up” benched? This reinterpretation (featuring rapper Mos Def) incorporated De La Soul’s “A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays’,” but was omitted from CDs in the US for some unknown reason.
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Infinite Possibilities stalled on Billboard’s album charts at #21 R&B and #79 Pop, but that was never the aim of this art. It has always been a doorway to the esoteric, an offramp from the mainstream leading to the uncommon artistic corridor Larrieux calls home. From the momentum of Infinite, Amel and Laru Larrieux founded Bliss Life Records where they would launch her epic Bravebird (2004) independently and flourish, inspiring others to do the same.
Today, indie music is leaps and bounds more accessible than in 2000. Nothing comes between artists and their adoring throngs of fans. There is much less to be said of what cannot be done, who cannot be heard, and what cannot be sung. With no limit to these possibilities now, maybe Larrieux saw them all along.
Want to learn more about Amel Larrieux’s Infinite Possibilities? Enjoy Mark Chappelle discussing the album at length during his recent guest appearance on the Catch That! podcast with The R&B Representers.
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