A triumphant return

After being shut out last year, this was India.Arie’s turn to stand out -- a welcome moment on a night when great music did not always beat out gloss.

Arie’s acoustic-flavored “Voyage to India” was among several introspective entries for best album, but its light touch and heavy spirituality apparently resonated more with voters than the similarly personal, more ambitious and arguably more deserving “Instant Vintage,” by neo-soul comeback kid and quintuple nominee Raphael Saadiq. Arie’s single “Little Things” prevailed in a competitive race for urban/alternative performance, in which she again trumped Saadiq as well as hip-hop-soul powerhouse Erykah Badu.

There were head-scratching victories in the vocal performance categories: Usher over Musiq? Mary J. Blige over Jill Scott? But despite these lapses, the more deserving wins made it all the more disappointing that Ashanti’s self-titled collection won for best contemporary album. How could this fluff even be worth nominating, let alone be deemed superior to the inventiveness of Meshell Ndegeocello’s “Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape”?

-- Natalie Nichols