At home with Teena Marie and daughter, Alia Rose

Jet, Oct 30, 2006

When Teena Marie visited the Johnson Publishing Company headquarters in Chicago, she said, "I wish my daughter was here to see this."

Teena Marie, who's known affectionately as the No. 1 honorary Soul Sista, believes in teaching her daughter about Black culture and Black history.

"She knows about her history," said Teena in her home in Pasadena, CA.

"She knows about Coretta Scott King. She knows about Dr. King. She would have loved to have seen the Johnson building. And I'm very spiritually deep, so between God and the African-American community, there's nothing we don't talk about. There's nothing she doesn't understand."

Alia Rose sings on her mother's current CD Sapphire. Says Teena, "When we sing together in harmony, you can't tell us apart. It's like the whole family thing, there's something so magical about that."

Others on the CD include Gerald Albright, Kurupt and the legendary Smokey Robinson, who sings on God Has Created and Cruise Control. "When I was a young girl, I studied Smokey and I really feel that's how I learned how to write music. I wanted to be that same kind of love poet and inspire love in people's hearts. I was very nervous in the studio because I was producing the record. And how am I going to tell Smokey Robinson what to do? I didn't have to because he is so amazing. He just came right in and I played the song one time and he was like 'Yeah, this is me.'"

She reveals that she felt the spirit of her late friend and mentor Rick James during the recording of the CD. "Sometimes it felt like he was actually writing music with me. Like he would wake me up in the middle of the night and say, "OK, let's write this.' We always had a mystical relationship."

Her 1979 debut Wild and Peaceful was produced by James and featured the hit I'm A Sucker For Your Love. Her other hits included Behind the Groove, I Need Your Lovin', Square Biz, Portuguese Love and her duet with Rick James, Fire and Desire.

Turning her attention to her daughter, she says: "She's a little Sista, she's just naturally a Sista. She always jokes with me and says, 'I didn't get my soul from my dad, I got it from my Momma.'" It's funny because Alia's father is Black; he's a postman."

Teena notes, "I grew up with a lot of Blacks around me; my mother is White, but I had a godmother who was Black. So I really felt like I had two mothers."

She has a built-in following of Black fans and remains a favorite on Black radio stations across the country.

"I admire her passion for Black music and her genuine commitment to the music industry," says Elroy Smith, program director, WVAZ-V103& WGCI radio in Chicago.

"When it is time for her to perform, she gives ticketholders more than what they paid for. She would stay onstage easily an hour and a half and still have energy to do more. I remember a few years ago, V103 and WGCI-Chicago hired her to do our Valentine's Day jam and she had the arena of 13,000 in the palm of her hand. Chicago is a fan of Teena Marie, and so am I."

Reflecting on her appeal among Black music lovers, Teena, who says she is Portuguese, Italian, Irish and American Indian, notes, "I've always been accepted by the Black community and I think that's a beautiful thing. I wanted to sing R&B. I've just been doing music that I like to do. I only had one big crossover record, which was Lover Girl, but basically my music has always been geared to a Black audience."

She adds with pride, "I think that makes me, me. And I think people can really hear that it is not pretentious, it's not contrived. It's from my heart."