"This album has more popular appeal than my other stuff," Maysa offers as a remedy for her status as Urban AC radio's best-kept secret. "I love my cult following. I have no complaints about that because that's more meaningful to me than anything. I don't want to walk into a store and have to have bodyguards and all that crap. I don't want that. If people come up to me in the supermarket and give me a hug, I love that. I don't think I'm doing anything different than Jill Scott or Ledisi. It's all the same vibe. When I was a kid I prayed to God that I would have longevity in the music industry and that's what I have. I haven't gone anywhere. I've been working 20 years straight."
The Motions of Love project, primarily shepherded by Chris "Big Dog" Davis who has also produced Will Downing and Kim Waters, marks a new chapter in the book of Maysa's career. "The original album title was Uncharted Territory because I kind of branched out a little bit on this record," she confesses. "I had planned on having a rock song, I rapped a little bit and I had a country song. The country song and rap made it but the rock song didn't make it because we didn't have time to finish it. My degree is in classical performance. If I wanted to, I could go into opera if I put my mind to it. This was intended to be an all R&B record with no jazz at all because I've never done a whole R&B album before."
Instead, it's a fourteen-track R&B album colored with funk, jazz, disco and a little New Orleans gumbo. Moreover, it's the completion of a quartet of albums detailing Maysa's rollercoaster romance with a now ex-boyfriend. This past June he took a pleasure trip to New York City and turned off his cell phone for two days straight. "For some reason that set me off," Maysa says. "I was done. When I'm away like in Budapest, he calls me and I answer the phone. Why can't you answer the phone or just send a text to say that you're ok?" When they did speak, an argument ensued and "the last thing this guy said to me is `I love you but I don't love you the way you want me to love you.' I'm like what the hell does that mean?"
The couple broke up and Maysa funneled both her fury and her desire for the perfect man into this new album. "I chose the songs because of my raw emotions," she adds. "One song says, `there may be some butt I have to kiss but your name ain't on the list.' I was on a plane to go work with my producer Big Dog and do a writing session. I told him that I had nothing to say. `I'm so heartbroken right now. I'm so angry that I can't think of a word to say about this man or about how I feel. I'm just numb. I'm 45 years old and I'm still going through this craziness.' It was a 45-minute ride and the song `When It's Over' came to me on that plane. As soon as I got to Big Dog I said, ` I wrote this on the plane' and he was like, `wow!' "
"On the album, Metamorphosis [2008], I was feeling the same way but this is ten times what I was feeling then," she confides. "I love that album. I did a lot of writing on it and it all revolves around the same man. From me choosing songs on the album Feel the Fire [2007] that had a lot to do with this man. The last five years we've been together, we've broken up several times and Metamorphosis was like a letter to him. Then, by the time A Woman in Love came out, we had gotten back together. It seemed like we got it right and everything was cool. Then, on this new album we just suddenly broke up again and this time I think is the final time…I will never give up on finding a good man. I don't care if I'm 85 years old, I'll still be looking for him."
Knowing that these musical tales sprang from Maysa's real life soap opera makes them even more poignant. On her smooth co-write, "You Won't Find Y
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