Album: Betty Wright & The Roots, Betty Wright: The Movie (S-Curve)

It's not one of the great voices, but Betty can lay greater claim to being the voice of "every woman" than, say, Chaka or Aretha.

What she has always sung about with great authority is sexual and domestic politics, and The Movie is squarely in Wright's thematic pocket. The slightly sterile neo-soul fump of the Roots may lack the feel of their progenitors but the songs make up for that. Lil Wayne, Snoop and Joss Stone chip in.