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Teena Marie VibeZ

Sixteen tracks from a singer, writer, producer and multi-instrumentalist who made herself indispensable to a scene that had no category for her.

teena

The ivory Queen of Soul will never be forgotten!

Teena Marie (1956–2010)

Mary Christine Brockert was a white woman from Santa Monica signed to Motown, which the label handled by releasing her first album without a photograph on the sleeve. A great many listeners assumed she was Black, and the eventual reveal did nothing to dent her standing — she remained one of the most genuinely beloved figures in Black American music until her death in 2010.

The reason is that she was the real thing at every level. She wrote her own songs, produced her own records, played guitar and keyboards, arranged her own vocals, and sang with a power and agility that put her among the best of her generation. Rick James was her mentor, collaborator and sometime partner, and their work together is the centre of both catalogues.

She also won a landmark legal case against Motown that changed how long labels could keep artists on the shelf — the Brockert Initiative — which benefited every recording artist who came after.

What to listen for

"Fire And Desire" with Rick James is the essential track — eight minutes, two singers pushing each other past the point of composure, and one of the great duets in soul.

"Square Biz" is the signature solo record and includes her rapping, which in 1981 was not a common thing for a soul singer to do.

"Portuguese Love" is the connoisseur's pick — harmonically the most adventurous thing here, and the arrangement is entirely hers.

"Ooo La La La" is the one hip-hop knows best; the Fugees built "Fu-Gee-La" on it.

"Lovergirl" was the biggest pop hit, and "I Need Your Lovin'" and "Behind The Groove" are the dancefloor peaks — the latter enormous in British soul clubs.

"Deja Vu (I've Been Here Before)" and "Cassanova Brown" are where the writing is strongest.

"It Must Be Magic" is the title track of the album most people start with.

Go deeper

It Must Be Magic (1981) and Starchild (1984) are the two essential albums, and both are entirely self-produced.

Rick James's Street Songs is the companion record. For other artists who wrote, produced and played their own material in this era: Prince, Chaka Khan and Betty Davis.

Why she was indispensable: she wrote, produced, arranged and played, in an era when a label would happily have handed her finished tracks and a photograph. The legal case she won against her own label also changed the rules for every recording artist who came after — a legacy entirely separate from the music, and a substantial one.

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