© 2024 Milwaukee Public Media is a service of UW-Milwaukee's College of Letters & Science
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Breaking Up Helped Ledisi Find 'The Truth' In Her Music

Ledisi performs at the 2013 BET Honors awards. The singer has been nominated for eight Grammy awards over the past 10 years.
Kris Connor
/
Getty Images for BET
Ledisi performs at the 2013 BET Honors awards. The singer has been nominated for eight Grammy awards over the past 10 years.

Singer songwriter Ledisi has had eight Grammy nominations, and says she is grateful for that. "I would like to win, but it will happen when its time."

For more than 10 years, Ledisi has garnered an international fan base while striving to grow her musical abilities.

On her latest album, The Truth, the New Orleans native opens her heart and talks about how she had to face the truth about a failing relationship. But the album is far from being a collection of downtrodden songs. For "The Truth" Ledisi breaks away from her trademark ballads and tries her hand at more upbeat tracks with tongue-in-cheek names such as, "That Good Good."

Ledisi recently spoke with Tell Me More guest host Celeste Headlee about why she wanted to expose her love life and what she learned in the process.


Why creating this album was a scary process

It's even more personal than any of the albums. I mean I am talking about not being in denial anymore about a relationship that wasn't working and it was a long relationship. And, I am putting it all out there. I usually do, but this is my love life, to me that's personal. Gaining success or wishing for success in my career and how I feel and how I feel about that is another thing; I don't mind that being out there.

Letting go of a failing relationship

I don't think letting go is a bad thing. Sometime that's the whole point of The Truth is that letting go doesn't have to be sad love songs, letting go doesn't have to be a bad thing... it's a good thing. We deserve happiness and if you're in something and it started out a certain way and it ended up another way you don't have to stay there.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.