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CONCERT REVIEW: Marsha Ambrosius @ World Café Live 2/18
You can add "master of ceremonies" to Marsha Ambrosius' already-impressive résumé.
CONCERT REVIEW: Marsha Ambrosius @ World Café Live 2/18
You can add “master of ceremonies” to Marsha Ambrosius’ already-impressive résumé. The soul singer-songwriter, perhaps best known for being the decidedly melodic half of 2000s duo Floetry, pulled out all stops on Monday night during a show that built beautiful crescendos out of the Philadelphia (by way of Liverpool and Atlanta) songstress’ candid narrations of love, sex and loss.
Philly club staple DJ Aktive kicked things off and got the crowd rocking to R&B and hip-hop classics from the past two decades — they even did “The Butt” (this reporter did not) before ceding the stage to Motown-signed quartet MPrynt. With the obvious echos of Boyz II Men in their sound, this group of Philly boys broke it down a cappella before a passionate, knees-on-floor and hearts-on-chiseled-arms-under-sleeves rendition of Adele’s “Someone Like You.” They get a lot of Twitter love from Ambrosius, and it’s easy to see why — few people can make someone else’s smash hit all their own the way they did.
That was all well and fun, but this crowd didn’t come for just any party. They came for a Marsha Ambrosius party. And that’s what they got, complete with cheesy games and birthday cake. There was even a mid-set dance break from Aktive, in which Ambriosius showed off her two-step skills. The actual set was filled with electrifying updates on songs from her Floetry days, faithful renditions of covers (Mary J. Blige’s “Real Love” being a notable one), numerous cuts from her high-charting solo debut Late Nights and Early Mornings, and some new material from her upcoming Friends & Lovers. Ambrosius’ soprano sears holes through spurned lovers’ hearts just as effortlessly as captures raw sexual passion, and her set examined both of these sides with true dexterity.
Her lyrical trademark is in earnest descriptions of relationships that read like diary pages and leave very little to the imagination, so it’s no surprise that she went into humorous and borderline-explicit descriptions of her inspirations during interludes between songs. All this recounting of escapades gone wrong or right might seem trite coming from another artist, but the crowd’s receptiveness and enthusiasm gave validation to Ambrosius’ emotional nakedness. It may be because, as she essentially declared, she is who she is. Whether she’s talking about how sex ruined a friendship, dancing to Bel Biv Devoe’s “Poison,” chastising a lover’s betrayal, or clutching her hair while working her register’s highest notes into a spirited frenzy, Ambrosius is exactly the way she makes herself in her music. There is no double-speak and very little subtlety, and that’s just how she and her fans would have it.
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