ME'SHELL - SOUL OF A SINGER

Meshell Ndegeocello - Soul of a Singer

for PLANET MAGAZINE


Meshell Ndegeocello gave herself that name when she was a teenager, about the same time she taught herself how to play the bass guitar. Now she calls herself Bashir or ‘B’. But she's not attached to that name either. Taking a cue from the aboriginal children in the book, “Message Down Under”, “They are encouraged to give themselves what ever name they feel at the time," Meshell Ndegeocello will not be pinned down. When we were first learning of her, with the 1994 release of “Plantation Lullabies,” she was the black, gay activist with an attitude. Now she states that “Gay is dead.” And that “Race is performative.” With her latest release, "Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape," we see it is not only her name that changes. On it we are invited to know the many sides of Meshell. She is the angry, empowered revolutionary, the brash hip-hop boaster, and the sensual soul singer. And then she has moved on again. She was just putting the finishing touches on this new album when the September 11th attacks occurred. In response, she has written a whole new album since. What it will be, we'll see. She doesn't make dance albums exactly, not purely hip-hop, political folk, or simply neo-soul. Like the artist herself, her work can not be that easily labeled. What unifies her work as a whole is the passion within. Meshell is an extremely passionate person.

We are having lunch at an Oakland café, but chewing doesn't seem to fit in with the fervor of conversation. So she pushes her salad aside. Elbows on the table. Meshell has something to say. She is smart, funny, and very articulate. And at the moment she is on fire about the state of the world, and the American myth that we seem to be buying into. “What do we expect of a country that’s been built upon slavery and the oppression of other people. We vote for someone else to think for us and we think that everything is okay?” But ultimately she’s optimistic. Or says she tries to be. Feeling we are lucky to be alive right now, “Cause for the first time, I think we will be able to witness real human evolution. We are the generation that will either literally blow ourselves up, or we can rise up with a real leader. We might possibly come to realize that this war thing is not working.”

This is where the revolutionary comes in. On her first track “Dead Nigga Boulevard” she quotes Dick Gregory “Understand young folks, when you put property rights ahead of human rights, understand you are tampering with nature. That’s right, you see, property rights is controlled by man, and human rights is controlled by nature.’ You can gain the world, lose your soul, worrying about what you ain’t got. Trying to make that dollar. Lift me up.” She isn’t just ranting; she’s educating. If she has anything to teach, “It’s to tell people of color to be critical thinkers.” And with her chorus she makes it clear,
“Try to hold on to some Africa of the past? One must remember its other Africans that helped enslave your ass. Everybody’s just trying to make that dollar. Remember when Jesse used to say ‘I am somebody’ No longer do I blame others for the way that we be, Cuz niggas need to redefine what it means to be free.” I ask her what it drives her to write these words, and she says she just writes what she feels, what’s going on inside her head.

On the track “Trust” it’s obvious she has something else on her mind indeed. Her voice goes from cock-sure to sultry, without loosing any of the confidence, as she croons, “Put your tongue in my mouth, make me wet, Run your hands down my back, grab my ass Lay me down, spread my legs. Tell me, what’s it like? Inside me.” Without skipping a beat she has moved us from the streets to the bedroom, and we’re still singing along. Meshell’s music is deceptively complex allowing all of her influences fair time. She says her music is “improvisational R&B/hip-hop.” But it’s where that improvisation comes from that makes her sound so unique. She was raised by a traditional jazz purist. Her father, a saxophone player, turned her on to Clifford Brown albums as one of her first musical influences. But she also credits blacksploitation films and her brother’s funk collection equally. From there she writes the music, but that’s just the first step. Next she brings it to the band. By reading Sonny Rollin, she realized, “You get the best out of the band by letting them be themselves. We all have something true to bring to the music.”

And so the sound is born, and reborn. Luscious layers of sexy bass, wise-ass keyboards and proud percussion tangle unto each track. The groove hits you below the belt, making you long for a lover, making you dance all alone, and then the words wake you, and you are called to attention. Intelligent soul is one way to describe it. But maybe it’s better to not describe it. Just close your eyes and listen. Cause Meshell Ndegeocello has something to say, and no better way to say it, then to hand you her Mixtape.

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