Sapphire is the release that ought to earn the indomitable Teena Marie her Oprah moment: If ever there was a disc with the potential to puff up the egos of 50-year-old women, this is it. Marie, 50 herself, sounds as vital and vixenish as she did in the '80s, when her anguished plea to be her man's "Lovergirl" was all over the airwaves (check first single "Ooo Wee," and "Make it Hot," a scorcher with ample reserves of bounce). What's more, Lady Tee leaps fearlessly into uncharted stylistic territory. Kurupt shows up early on track three ("Baby Who's Is It") to ease a transition into hip-hop, but five songs later she dispenses with the gravel-voiced help and goes it alone: "Love is a Gangsta" is her love letter to the raw and the real, and in it she makes the class move of name-checking a fellow 50-ish badass, Pam Grier. On a rambling disc that would do her one-time partner Rick James proud--there is an unignorable element of superfreakishness to Sapphire that owes itself both to Marie's dramatic phrasing and her distinctive production--she also reaches back to her old-school R&B roots, enlisting the ever-sexy Smokey Robinson for the swivelly "Cruise Control" (and the less likable opener "God Has Created"). "Resilient," the closer, could have been the title of this disc--it has all the trappings of autobiography--but instead of running off with it, Marie mikes up her daughter, Alia Rose, for a duet. Don't count on Marie stepping aside to get all middle-aged-mother anytime soon, though. By the sound of Sapphire, she's just getting started. --Tammy La Gorce
