This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
If any new artist out there qualifies as the voice of distinction, it’s Macy Gray.
Indeed, it’s impossible to discuss this hip-hop singer-songwriter’s stunning debut album without first discussing her equally stunning voice. As a child, she says, she was so mercilessly teased about her little-girl rasp that she stopped talking for a time; even after becoming a songwriter, she was supposedly so self-conscious she didn’t even think of singing until a woman who was supposed to record one of her songs didn’t show up at the studio. As the story goes, when Gray stepped up the mic and opened her mouth, everyone else’s jaw dropped.
When you listen to this album, yours might too. Gray’s voice, while not technically amazing, has a sound that’s simply unforgettable. It’s the sort of transcendent, one-of-a-kind entity that whips critics into a simile-spinning frenzy: It’s like Betty Boop flirtting with Rod Stewart. Like Tina Turner singing a duet with Eartha Kitt. Like Carol Channing covering Billie Holiday. Like … well, you get the idea.
Actually, you really won’t get the idea until you hear her. Because her voice is like all of the above and like nothing else you’ve heard before: It’s soulful and gritty, charming and sweet, tender and evocative, sexy and raw.
Fittingly (but somewhat remarkably), so is this wonderfully varied 10-track set of songs featuring lyrics by Gray set to tunes performed by a crack studio band including former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Arrik Marshall. That old-school-meets-new-cool vibe is evident in songs like Why Didn’t You Call Me, Do Something and the tongue-in-your-cheek Sex-O-Matic Venus Freak, a potent mix of slick ’60s soul, superfly ’70s funk and bouncy ’90s hip-hop.
But perhaps most important is what On How Life Is does not contain. There are no overproduced ballads, no gangsta raps, no diva histrionics. Just real-deal funk and inner-city soul, served up with wit, grit and sass.
To put it another way: Let’s just say Gray’s musical voice turns out to be just as distinctive as her singing voice.
