Leela James brings 20 years of soul hits to Peace Center: Upstate Beat

Leela James does not phone it in. She does not hold back. Over a 20-plus-year career that includes work with the Black Eyed Peas and Wyclef Jean, the California soul singer has attacked her material with pure passion.

Take her single “Thought U Knew,” the title track of her new album, for example. It’s a piece of audio ear-candy, a laid-back groove that hearkens back to the G-Funk era of the early 1990s. A low-key approach would have been acceptable, but not for James, who powerfully vocalizes around the melody, improvising like a jazz singer.

It’s an incredible skill, especially when one has to recreate it night after night on tour. That tour brings her to the Peace Center in Greenville on Nov. 6, and to start our conversation I asked James how she prepares herself each night for her vocal performance, both physically and mentally.

“I drink a lot of warm liquid, and I do some vocal warm-ups, of course,” James said. “That helps. And then to get into the head space, I go to a quiet space and meditate for a while. I need about 20 minutes or so where I can be left alone and shut down and put my head into performance mode.”

That “performance mode” shines on the “Thought U Knew” album, which radiates with an organic warmth that was missing in its predecessor, the darker and more electronic “See Me,” released in 2021. James, who writes and produces or co-produces virtually all her music, said the album’s mood simply reflected hers.

“‘See Me’ was recorded during the pandemic,” she says, “so that’s reflective of what was happening in my life and the energy that I was feeling at that time. ‘Thought U Knew’ is definitely more upbeat and revitalized: I’m still here, and I thought you knew.”

And as James performs soulful hits like “Say That,” “Fall for You,” “Don’t Want You Back” and “Complicated” at the Peace Center, she’ll be looking out on a multigenerational audience that definitely knows she’s still here.

“What I find most interesting is now I’ll have a mother who’s there with her daughter,” James says, “and the mother will tell me, ‘The first time I saw you was 20 years ago, when I just had my baby!’ It’s just wonderful to see a grandmother, a mother and a daughter together at your concert.”