You might already know Farris’s voice: she spent time as an ““extended family’’ member of the good-vibration rap group Arrested Development. That’s her soulful belt you hear in their 1992 hit ““Tennessee.’’ But Farris quit in ‘93 at the peak of AD’s success. Things within the group were getting a bit, well, trippy. Meaning big heads? ““That, and just believing some of the things people tell you,’’ she says. ““I think everybody got the bug.’’ She made a smart move: the band’s 1994 follow-up album flopped. Farris learned when not to listen to what people tell you. ““On this new record, I was telling people I like rock, funk, blues, jazz, and I want to incorporate some of this,’’ she says. ““Friends would say, “You cannot do that. You’re a black woman. You need to go the straight R&B route, ‘cause you’re going to blow it if you keep being stubborn’.’’ But not only did Farris bring in all those styles – her album’s willful eclecticism is one of its strongest points – she also arranged, cowrote and coproduced. ““People ask me, and it irks me to death, “Who produced it?’ I say, “I did. How about that? I did’.’’
Now based in Atlanta, Farris grew up in Plainfield, N.J., with a single mother who worked as a teacher (her father split when she was very young). Both her parents loved to sing, so they named her after Dionne Warwick. She always had an offbeat streak – ““right on the edge of the spoon,’’ as she says – and loved music, loved to perform. At school she sang in choirs, studied her library’s Billie Holiday records and during her senior year was cast in the lead role of Annie. ““I was like, word! The first black Annie,’’ she says. ““When the costumes came in, they had the orange wig. My drama teacher was like, “I double-dare you to wear it.’ I said, “No, you are crazy.’ Instead I wore this big afro wig.’’ At 21, she and a boyfriend moved to Atlanta. He wound up as Arrested Development’s drummer; the two broke up around the time she left the band. It’s just as well – she likes doing her own thing. Farris’s openness and charm allow her to get away with leaps of sentiment that would seem corny or awkward in heavier hands. Like her gospel-tinged cover of the Beatles’ fragile classic ““Blackbird.’’ ““When I listened to the words, it was like, God, this is so me,’’ she says. ““At that moment in my life, I was supposed to be taking these broken wings and learning to fly. I call it my anthem. I am that blackbird.’’ And when she says that, you can believe her.
