Multiple award-winning vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater delivers an astounding masterwork complete with an entrancing set of original compositions and four reworked jazz classics on Red Earth. It is her ode to Mali and Africa -- the story of a lost child finding her way home. Singing in the spirit that calls on her African and Malian ancestry and with reverence for jazz vocalists such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald at their best, Bridgewater exudes the artistic depth she is revered for around the world. Recorded in Mali and featuring some of its most respected artists, this ambitious concept recording explores Malian and other African jazz roots on such songs as "Bani" (Bad Spirits), "Sakhodougou" (The Griots), "Oh My Love," and "Massane Cissé" (Red Earth). When it was written, "Bambo" (No More), composed by Tata "Bambo" Kouyate, was so powerful that it led the government to abolish forced marriage in the 1960s.