Together the ladies of Floetry were a force to be reckoned with and one of the shining lights of the early-'00s neo-soul scene. Seperately, both Marsha "The Songstress" Ambrosius and Natalie "The Floacist" Stewart have had individual success, with Marsha gaining much more mainstream appeal since moving away from her spoken-sung roots towards a more "traditional" R&B approach. Sales and success aside, for me at least, neither artist has so far managed to capture the magic that they once shared together. The Floetry "split" was a well-publicized but little-understood event, with many putting it down to creative differences -- although rumors still persist -- and it seemed that the group's name would be confined to the soul music history books (despite the short-lived relaunch of the group with Amanda Diva taking Natalie's role). Well, it looks like we might actually be getting Floetry 2.0, as Natalie has teamed up with fellow British songstress Julie Dexter to form Floetry Rebirth, and will be releasing The Floacist Presents: Floetry Rebirth on October 2nd. It isn't yet clear whether the album will consist entirely of Floetry covers, but Natalie has chosen to kick things off with a solo take on the classic "Say Yes." Now, I was a huge Floetry fan back in the day, and I loved Natalie's Floetic Soul solo debut, but there is definitely something -- a whole lot of something -- missing from this version. Marsha's vocals and ad-libs on the original are legendary and, without them, the track fails to take off, leaving us with a pleasant jazz-tinged groove that lacks the sensuality and emotion of the original. So what say you, SoulBouncers? Are you looking forward to the Rebirth of Floetry? Or would you rather remember them as they were?
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