Teena Marie: Sapphire (Cash Money Classics/Universal).

First known as a protege' of late Motown funkmeister Rick James and a dynamic producer and songwriter in her own right, Teena Marie has carved out a distinguished career in R & B, garnering gold albums and numerous radio hits from the late 1970s (notably with the heavily sampled, rap-driven 1981 hit, "Square Biz") through the mid-1990s. Labeled "blue-eyed soul" artist by a cliche-minded music writer, Marie's talents garnered her a following that belied her complicated racialized and familial context. Of Portuguese descent and hailing from a significant African-American communal family, Marie was far from the first "white" artist signed to Motown or any of its imprints, ...