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Every once in a while, you meet a woman of inimitable style. The kind of woman for whom clothes are less a statement than an artist's palette. The kind of woman whose best accessory is her smile. Martha Redbone is that kind of woman.

Every once in a while, you hear a voice you can't forget. It's the angel whispering in your ear at the moment when you are most discouraged. It's the bird's song that flits by you, the moment when you realize that despite all your doubts and cynicism, you've once again fallen in love. It's the throaty, Bacall-like purr that is telling a very dirty, albeit very clever, joke next to you in your favorite bar. Martha Redbone has that kind of a voice.

The great intellectual and race man of our time, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, once said, "The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line." In a country like the U.S., where there is so much focus on black and white, one might say that the problem with Martha Redbone is that she colors outside of the lines. Her caramel-colored skin bespeaks a multi-racial history, but it's not the one you might expect. Her mother is American Indian -- Blackfoot with a little Choctaw thrown in. Her father was black American, with American Indian ancestry as well. You can hear it in her music, something so rare in a country so young -- heritage, roots that go back for centuries. She took her name from this heritage. "Redbone is a southern term for being black and Indian," Martha explains. "I grew up feeling bad about it. Black was beautiful when I was growing up, but where did that leave me? I embrace Redbone now as my own definition of beauty."

Martha Redbone grew up in New York and Kentucky. An unlikely combination that you can hear in her flow: the staccato melodies of the city, mixed with the easy, wide-open praise song of a country choir. Once an aspiring Picasso, she studied at New York's prestigious School of Visual Art. She moved to London, got her heart broken and decided to channel the feelings through music instead of art. An interview with a "vampire" led to an introduction instead -- to Martha's songwriting partner, producer Aaron Whitby. Whitby and Redbone have been a team ever since.

A body in motion tends to stay in motion and it's been nonstop ever since. Martha Redbone was mentored by legendary musician, Walter "Junie" Morrison, who was an original member of the Ohio Players and later, Parliament. Now a sister to the funk, she sang background vocals on the Mothership reunion album with George Clinton.

In the immortal words of Tribe Called Quest, can Martha Redbone kick it? Yes, she can and she's got a publishing deal with Warner Chappell to prove it. Her lyrics capture, like fireflies in a jar, the bright and simple moments in life that we're often too busy to notice:

"hello, my love, looks like i'm home again.
same ol', same ol' working day to day.
my life is a book that's somehow missing the last page
nothing new happens, nothing new happens...

but after work, here comes the happy hour
and all i'm dreaming of is seeing you,
my favorite picture is slowly coming into view
in the clear again.
now, you're near again."

Martha Redbone decided to title the album after the last line of the national anthem: "land of the free and home of the brave." Brave was a reference to Native Americans. But while the founding fathers called America, "home of the brave", for more than 200 years, it was anything but.

"It's a hard thing to do these days, to follow what you believe in," she says. "When you do that, then you become brave. Your body becomes more than a body. It becomes a home of the brave." Pablum pop songs to the contrary, Martha believes that being in love is also an act of courage. "Staying in love is brave," she says, with her wide-open smile. "You can fall in love 100 times a day, but keeping a relationship alive takes work. It's brave to let someone come closer, opening yourself to let someone know what's in your heart."

There's joy in Martha's music, but there's a ferocious quality to the music as well. Songs like "Vineyard" and "Perfect Life" resonate with the conscious-raising, spirit-lifting melodies and lyrics of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?" While tunes like "Underdog" explore the sweet and bitter hand that life deals us and how we shuffle between dreams, luck and fate.

That kind of openness is what this album is all about. This album doesn't mince words or pull punches. It's everything -- angry; painful; funny; smart; romantic; playful -- that's in Martha's heart. In the lyrics, in the beats, in the soulful, sassy timber of her voice -- there are treasures to unfold. Go ahead and drop in on the Home of the Brave. Someone very special is waiting at home.