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Her eclectic blend of folk, rock, pop and intelligent hip-hop is one part Joni Mitchell and Rickie Lee Jones; one part Grandmaster Flash -- and wholly unique.
While tidy... featured a hodge-podge of different styles, her latest CD, Tune Up, is firmly rooted in the beat-driven, bass-heavy sounds of dub and hip-hop.
"I love hip-hop!" exclaims Starr, who grew up in Calgary and attended Western Canada high school before packing up and moving to the West Coast.
"I'm a huge fan and I totally recognize that I don't really fit in with the rest of the genre.
"Then again, a lot of friends of mine who are hardcore into hip-hop really love the hip- hop I'm doing, and they're hardcore purists right down to their gesturing and the way they speak."
In Starr's opinion, hip-hop -- or her brand of it, which she has coined chunk-hop -- is perhaps the most effective way of getting her poetic musings across to an audience.
"Hip-hop is expression, it's poetry, it's about being yourself," she says.
"So ultimately, that translates to anybody who really loves the art of hip-hop. I think they can see that.
"But I think that there's a lot of kids who have been raised on commercial hip-hop and they won't get what I'm doing. And that's fine.
"There are people who are going to think it sucks and some people who don't. The same with any piece of art. But I try not to think about that because there's no way you can please everybody."
After her promising debut, which was picked up by Mercury Records in the U.S., Starr -- who will be joined by her new band, Handsome Boyz 3, at the Night Gallery on Tuesday night -- suffered a setback in 1998 when Mercury was acquired by Seagram's in a massive label merger.
Although she had a new recording under her belt, it was shelved until she asked to be let go from the roster.
The album, entitled Mending, will be released through Infiniti Records in Japan and England's Jeepster Records. It's available only on import.
"These are labels that need their artists because they're small," says Starr, who keeps herself insanely occupied by studying languages, math, Buddhism, inter-racial politics and yoga in addition to her performing duties.
"As soon as you get into an area of record labels that are financed by corporations, there's so much money passing hands that it becomes a priority.
"All they need is one cash cow on the roster for the year and everyone else is unnecessary.
"It turned me off music for a bit, but then I just realized that it doesn't really matter if I have the support of a major label.
"I still do what I do."