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BOSTON HERALD
Christopher John Treacy
July 5, 2007
Expect the unexpected from Meshell Ndegeocello. And then some.
The singer/songwriter/musician/composer has been a “floater” in recent years, having cut loose from Maverick Records after 2003’s Comfort Woman. CD - but her creativity continues.
Ndegeocello’s well-attended Paradise set Tuesday was an astounding display of daring, richly textured electric funk andjazz with plenty of punked-out, skronk-rocking tangents. It definitely was not a crowd-pleasing run of fan faves - but that’s part and parcel of the lady’s unapologetic artistry.
Instead, she showcased material from a recent import-only EP, Article 3, new songs from her forthcoming full-length, The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams (rumored to be coming in late August on the revived Decca label), and a few unrecorded tunes. The only stroll down memory lane came during the melancholy “Free My Heart” from 1997’s Peace Beyond Passion.
Playing in an adventurous quintet, Ndegeocello switched off bass duties with Mark Kelley, plucking out the instrumental introductions herself and then letting him take over when it came time to sing.
The band performed in a semicircle, and Ndegeocello often remained in back as conductor - but you could feel her enthusiasm the most when she stood center stage to boogie, eyes closed, fingers snapping, lost in the music.
With snare-rim and high-hat-happy drummer Charlie Haynes endlessly splicing out reggae beats, keyboardist Jason Lindner creating atmospheric, space-age washes galore and recurring collaborator/guitarist Oren Bloedow’s fancy fretwork, Ndegeocello’s new band, the Grand Mission, was nothing shy of a well-oiled machine. At full tilt it cranked soul grooves as thick as tar.
She introduced what might be the first ever funk-fortified Joy Division cover, “Wilderness,” which she dedicated to the late James Brown. Other highs included the gritty, organ-fueled “White Girl”; “Evolution,” which she dedicated to Darwin; “Headline”; and “The Sloganeer,” a meditation on the madness of suicide bombing. Recurring themes of spirituality vs. creationism, harmony, dissatisfaction, love and loss waxed and waned through her new lyrics.
Like Miles Davis or Joni Mitchell, Ndegeocello challenges musical convention with an ample supply of curveballs. It’s a shame that some listeners say they don’t “get” her songs, because she’s making progress on the fringes of pop music.
JAZZ TIMES
Bill Milkowski
January 22, 2006
Bassist-singer-provocateur Meshell Ndegeocello brought the Knit marathon to a rousing climax, playing into the wee hours with her Miles-inspired funk-fusion outfit, Spirit Music Jamia, which featured J.D. Allen’s robust tenor sax work alongside Oliver Lake’s alto sax, Brandon Ross’s guitar, Michael Cain’s keyboards, Mark Kelly’s bass and the two-drum tandem of Terreon Gully and Damion Reid. While initially signed as a pop artist to Madonna’s label, Maverick, Ndegeocello has emerged as a first-rate improviser with one foot solidly in the jazz camp. It will be interesting to see if she continues to develop along this more adventurous instrumental path or if this is just a temporary detour in her career. Stay tuned.
NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS
Jimmie Briggs
April 27 - May 3, 2005
Over two nights last week, soulrock musician Meshell Ndegeocello test drove her new band, The Grand Mission, at Joe's Pub in the Village. For the most part, the ride was very smooth. Since her early 90's debut release, Plantation Lullabies, Ndegeocello has successfully carved out a niche from herself, separate from the highly visible class of Black, female, neo-soul singers such as Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Jaguar Wright or Amel Larriuex. The performer likely most inspired by her would be Res.
Ndegeocello has collaborated with rockers like John Mellencamp, the Motown record label house band in the movie "Standing in the Shadows of Motown," and contributed songs to several movie soundtracks including "Love & Basketball." She's also worked on a jazz-based record with Cassandra WiIson, Kenny Garrett and others, Her recent'shows at Joe's Pub announce another step in her musical journey since the release of her fifth album, Comfort Woman. in 2003.
The still-evolving band at Joe's Pub included Ndegeocello on vocals and bass, Mark Kelley on bass, Adam Deitch on drums, Jason Lindner on keyboard, Gilmar Gomes on percussion, Mike Severson and Herve Sambe on guitar, with Lysette Titi on vocals. The low din rumbung from the club's audience sometimes made it difficult to clearly hear all songs in the hour-plus set. It was a capacity crowd filled with Black bohos, hipsters, dreads, buppies and a remaining rainbow spectrum of fans.
Ndegeocello gave an understated, stirringly evocative show highlighting her bluesy foundation on bass guitar while debuting songs likely to appear on her next album this fall. Many of the words she sang seemed directed at lovers, past and present, as well as the search for her own freedom. There were no familiar tunes such as "If That Was Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)," "Lilloquoi Moon," or "Fool of Me." Still, the show was tremendously satisfying and charged, with the band being called back onto stage for a short encore.
LA WEEKLY
Ernest Hardy
October 6, 2005
Sometimes, all it takes is one moment of transcendence to elevate a good concert into an unforgettable one. There were two such moments at this show. A singer-songwriter whose soulful and elastic voice is rarely done justice by the songs she pens, Laurnea was sexy, playful and earthy (at one point lifting her sheer top to wipe the sweat off her belly) during her 12-song set. Her renditions of her hits “Infatuation” and “Happy” were rousing crowd-pleasers; but the show really soared when she invited her best friend, India Arie, onstage. The two traded verses on a birthday celebration song they’d written and the energy between them crackled, making the crowd forget the club’s sweltering heat. Part of that spark, however, was also due to Meshell Ndegeocello. Wearing a thrift-store orange skirt, a battered knit cap and some granny socks rolled down to her ankles, the shy goddess of bass walked meekly onstage behind India, but Godzilla’d the spot once she strapped on her instrument. Still, that was just a warmup for when Laurnea spotted Rachelle Farrell in the crowd and handed her a mike.
Channeling some Afro-Cuban parrot, eerily mimicking every kinda horn ever made and digging deep in that emotional and technical cave where she stores her bag of tricks, Farrell drove the crowd insane during an extended jam session. She finally convinced an understandably reluctant India to join her on the mike, and after much prodding Ms. Arie provided the rock-steady bottom. Having stepped back for a moment to figure out where the hell her show went, Laurnea slowly crouched deep at the knees and belted “Get, get, get it together!” over and over until it became a head-nodding hypnotic chant. With every octave leap, Farrell pushed shit higher. Meshell conducted the whole thing with fiercely gunned bass lines that ricocheted across the room. It was an extraordinary moment of artists sharing, converging and forcing one another to bring their A+ game. They did. The audience was fed.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Don Heckman
June 29, 2005
It's probably not surprising that Meshell Ndegeocello has been drawn to jazz for her latest project. Despite her great versatility as an instrumentalist, singer, poet and more, the density of jazz, with its century-long roots in the shifting changes in African American culture, has always been present to some degree in her music.
Her latest recording, Dance of the Infidel, features a new musical collective, Spirit Music Jamia, moving confidently through territory reminiscent of the Miles Davis bands of the '70s and Weather Report. But her performance Monday at the El Rey Theatre was more expansive, suggesting a correlation with bands of Charles Mingus.
Ndegeocello's gutsy bass lines combined with the powerful drumming of Chris Dave and Gilmar Gomes, the guitar of Oran Coltrane and the wildly eclectic keyboard work of Michael Cain to create a tsunami of rhythmic drive. Riding this turbulent wave, three saxophonists—Ron Blake, Oliver Lake and Kebbi Williams—ripped through interactive soloing and dark-textured ensemble passages.
On the down side, Ndegeocello's voice was rarely heard singing—which was disappointing to those familiar with her vocal excursions—although moments of poetry surfaced through the bottom-heavy sound mix.
Add to that the random quality of the set, in which last-minute discussions and instructions frequently occurred between numbers. But this, at least, was reminiscent of the similarly chaotic but ultimately musically productive exchanges that frequently took place in the Mingus bands.
Yes, there were moments when everything seemed on the verge of coming apart. But when it worked, Ndegeocello's Spirit Music Jamia had the feel of a band with a vital jazz future.
BOSTON GLOBE
Siddhartha Mitter
June 27, 2005
At this moment in her career, Meshell Ndegeocello is not a singer. She's an expert electric bass player whose sense of groove and sonic construction sustains an all-star ensemble she calls Spirit Music Jamia, assembled from across the jazz, Latin, and R&B scenes. Her voice, however, is limited to introducing the band. Some at the Paradise on Saturday night were clearly unprepared for this, as the audience thinned during the set.
That was a shame, because taking place onstage was a demonstration of the power of groove-based music in the tradition of the great bands of Fela Kuti, Miles Davis, Roy Ayers, and Tito Puente, a collaboration of instinctive musicians working as peers. From Afrobeat to rumba, the richness of the music of the black Atlantic was on full display along with the unmatchable synthetic power of pure funk.
Along with Michael Cain on keyboards, a saxophone triple threat of Oliver Lake on alto, Kebbi Williams on tenor, and an animated Ron Blake on baritone and soprano assured melody and warmth, aggressive without overplaying. Chris Dave on drums and Gilmar Gomes on congas kept the proceedings grounded. And the breakbeats and disembodied voices that DJ Jahi Sundance distilled from his turntables made clear that this band has no fear of the future.
Clad in a "Star Wars" shirt and a kaffiyeh wrap over close-shorn hair, Ndegeocello was a vision from some alternate reality where paradox is a way of life. She directed from a rear corner, launching thick, pungent bass grooves into the ether. While watching her in communion with the band, it became clear that her move away from center stage is a daring and successful step toward creative freedom.
ALBANY TIMES UNION
David Malachowski
June 27, 2005
An unusual pairing of artists came to The Egg on Friday for a wild night that was engaging, avant-garde and, stylistically, all over the map.
Singer/bassist Meshell Ndegeocello released her first CD on Madonna's Maverick label in 1993, but it was her collaboration with John Mellencamp on a cover of Van Morrison's "Wild Night" that brought her national attention.
At The Egg, the 36-year-old Ndegeocello had with her the seven-piece Spirit Music Jamia, featuring a horn section and DJ.
In black shorts, a white hoody and buzz cut, Ndegeocello stood back by her bass amp, seemingly just another member of the band. In fact, you could barely see her behind the percussionist.
After falling into a short jam, Ndegeocello stepped up to the mike and announced, "This is not a vocal performance."
True to her word, she did not sing a note. Not that it was a bad thing. With members of the band offering superb solos, the jams were almost spiritual compositions.
Quirky bass lines fueled one musical excursion after another, as Ndegeocello's technical depth drove the ensemble. It was more about the musicianship and interplay, such as "Heavy Spirits," a tune that fell into Ron Blake's spare "Invocation."
Musical chances were taken, but folks started to trickle out after half an hour.
WASHINGTON POST
Sarah Godfrey
June 23, 2005
Technically, Meshell Ndegeocello didn't play the 9:30 club Tuesday night. She was onstage, as bald and as beautiful as ever, but striking physical characteristics aside, the woman on the bass bore little resemblance to the beloved unconventional neo-soul/funk/R&B artist.
Ndegeocello, who appeared along with Joshua Redman, has been completely absorbed by the Spirit Music Jamia, the fusion jazz group of her latest disc, Dance of the Infidel. She shunned a grand entrance, preferring to walk on surrounded by the band, then hid behind Chris Dave's drum kit and proceeded to ignore her solo catalogue for the entire set.
There were no recollections of "Barry Farms" and no wondering "Who Is He (And What Is He to You?)." In fact, Ndegeocello refrained from singing and pretty much parted her lips only to thank the crowd for its "time and energy," and to introduce the phenomenal Jamia ensemble, which includes saxophonists Ron Blake and Oliver Lake and DJ Jahi Sundance.
But, as is the case with Ndegeocello's previous reinventions, banning old material from the playlist was a brilliant move. The Washington-area-bred musician led the group through more than an hour of rich instrumental sound—breaking into "Outside Your Door" or "Stay" would have disturbed the groove.
The Spirit Music Jamia served up everything from reverberating dub reggae and Afrobeats borrowed from Fela Kuti to the sweeping opuses "Al-Falaq 113" and "Luqman" and the gorgeous unreleased gem "Red Planetary Skywalker." And judging from her deep knee bends, squeezed-shut eyes and the occasional smile, the latest progression in Ndegeocello's career couldn't suit her any better.
NEW YORK TIMES
Ben Ratliff
June 17, 2005
Meshell Ndegeocello radiates autonomy: she has a lot to communicate about funk, identity, sex, politics, the spirit world; she has referred to her records as chapters of a memoir, and she won't recede in her work. In her role as pop star, she often acts as singer, lyricist, composer, bass player, bandleader, producer and central image.
But for the last two years, every now and then at a smaller club, she has taken the bedrock musical languages in her work—jazz and funk—and stepped back into the rhythm section, sometimes creating pure instrumental music, sometimes using guest singers. She now calls this band the Spirit Music Jamia, and its first record, Dance of the Infidel, comes out next week. On Wednesday at Birdland she and her band played without any singers at all.
Even without her smoky voice and pointed lyrics, there was still an extravagant amount of Ms. Ndegeocello in the music; the band swelled up to eight people and down to five, but what really made Wednesday's show was her electric bass playing, and her interaction with her drummer, Chris Dave.
Ms. Ndegeocello played softly and far behind the beat; the moment of articulation for each note was tiny and delicate, and she freely alternated short, blipping phrases with longer, liquidly swinging ones. Mr. Dave reconfirmed the groove with a heavy hand, but no amount of power could overrun the force coming from the bass.
The band set itself up as a rectangle, with Mr. Dave's trap drums and a DJ (Jahi Sundance Lake) facing each other on the short sides; Ms. Ndegeocello played at a right angle to the drums. With the saxophonists Kebbi Williams and Ron Blake, the conga player Gilmar Gomes, the guitarist Alex Grant, and the keyboardist Michael Cain, the band stomped out an old Fela Kuti song, later slinking through a slow dub-reggae passage, jamming over a 6/8 Latin clave rhythm, and ruminating through jazz chords and static harmony with Mr. Cain on a Fender Rhodes electric piano, a bit in the style of Miles Davis's early 70's music. For one band to associate all these styles -- Afrobeat, Cuban, reggae, jazz—isn't unheard of; Yerba Buena, for instance, does it. But Ms. Ndegeocello, directing the sound while immersed in it, provokes a fascination with individual touch, and completely validates the jamming philosophy. The set lasted an hour, but could have gone on twice as long.
CHICAGO SUN TIMES
Brian Orloff
June 7, 2005
Fans anticipating a concert by bassist and singer Meshell Ndegeocello Sunday night at the Park West got just that. Only, it wasn't in the form most were expecting.
Ndegeocello, always a musical chameleon, came to town not to perform her solo material, as many expected—especially since her name alone was on the ticket. Instead, she arrived as an ensemble member representing her latest project, the Spirit Music Jamia. The improvisational quintet offered concertgoers 75 minutes of sensual, groove-heavy music from its album Dance of the Infidel, which already has been released in Europe but will not hit shelves here until June 21.
"Sorry for the misunderstanding," Ndegeocello said, offering an apology of sorts—and her only words to the crowd—two songs into the concert. "But it's all music to feel good to. It's just music to be open to and give praise to."c
Despite the potential misrepresentation, which did not appear to be Ndegeocello's fault, patient and curious fans were rewarded with material that was constructed upon Ndegeocello's strong, frittered bass lines, textured samples of political speeches and soaring bursts of brass. The expert group, which featured saxophonists Oliver Lake and Ron Blake, keyboardist Michael Cain, DJ Jahi Sundance and drummer Quentin Baxter, locked into tight song structures, mining the shadowy, spectral tunes for all their emotional depth.
Nevertheless, some crowd members—and it was a full house—grew impatient, pleading in between songs for Ndegeocello to sing. Not only did she not respond to the impassioned requests, the diminutive, bald-headed Ndegeocello appeared resistant to any kind of spotlight at all, preferring instead to blend in as an anonymous ensemble member. She retreated to the right corner of the stage, shrouded in the darkness. At times, she was literally steps from being offstage. This strident dismissal of attention actually had an opposite affect than intended: Ndegeocello only called more attention to herself.
To fans familiar with her work, this bucking of convention is not especially out of character. Throughout her long and always creative career, Ndegeocello has invariably surprised listeners—and her record company—by recording radically different-sounding albums with each subsequent release.
Still, her behavior, and the band's generally insouciant approach, felt off-putting and definitely lodged a further distance and disconnect from the crowd.
On their own merits, the seven compositions performed (their titles were not announced, and there was no set list offered), ostensibly the entirety of the Dance of the Infidel record, were intoxicating if a bit homogenous. Trumpeter Oliver Lake's riveting solos erupted in squiggly, erratic bursts of noise that enlivened and enriched the band's sound, and drummer Baxter contributed a skittish, reggae-like beat that dovetailed with Ndegeocello's anchoring bass. It's just a shame that she seemed so opposed to really owning it.
WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL
Michael Muckian
June 6, 2005
Headliner Ndegeocello brought a hypnotic funk groove to her instrumental set that allowed her five fellow musicians, including turntable artist Jahi Sundance, ample latitude for experimentation. Spirit Music Jamia, an ancient name for "school," replicates the mid-1970s sound of minimalist trumpeter Miles Davis during one of his richest fusion periods. The same muted trumpet is present, and the approach is almost an homage to Davis, but less discreet in its riff choices. Michael Cain's keyboards are an easy blend of the Herbie Hancock-Keith Jarrett-Chick Corea triumvirate from that same period, with some interstellar sound effects thrown in.
Ndegeocello, now with a shaved head, lays down a surprisingly strong bass, her diminutive form in front of an amplifier stack just slightly taller than she is. But the hypnotic rhythms get repetitive after a while, and the evening's most innovative aspects sometimes come from Sundance, whose turntable articulations alternate between effective and grating.
Fans may have been disappointed that the normally vocal Ndegeocello chose to leave that task to Sundance's occasional sound bites. If anything, given the artist's cross-genre pedigree, the set may not have been experimental enough. But that didn't stop dozens from leaving in between each song.
LONDON FINANCIAL TIMES
Mike Hobart
April 14, 2005
Meshell Ndegeocello's Jazz Cafe gig showcased music from her largely instrumental current CD, Dance of the Infidel. This excellent modern fusion album is a radical move away from the sharp lyrics and R&B-inflected vocals that made her reputation in 1993 and far from the hype-laden world of pop.
Subtitled "The Spirit Music Jamia", the contemplative themes are starting points for often passionate jazz improvisations and unfolding textural subtleties. Established New Yorkers including the saxophonist Kenny Garrett and the trumpeter Wallace Roney solo over the rhythm sections, with Ndegeocello herself on bass guitar. Live, with a front line pared down to two saxophones, a three-piece rhythm section and samples, the music inevitably lost some subtlety but gained in bite.
Ndegeocello is a great bassist, with a real sense of pulse and a terrific, fat thump of a tone. The overall feel of her music is reminiscent of the 1970s fusion pioneers Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters Band, updated by contemporary grooves. Her melodies are contemplative, with titles such as "Mu-Min" and "Heaven". Played by two saxophones, they float disconcertingly over the underlying pulse.
The main soloist was the saxophonist Ron Blake, on tenor and baritone, whose tone ranges from breathily bluesy to jagged and obtuse. And he combines a nice sense of tradition with an appreciation of contemporary club music.
However, this is a quintessentially collective music. The drummer Chris Dave and keyboardist Michael Cain, strong individual musicians and soloists, brilliantly sustained the inner funk pulse, whether shaded by Afrobeat or dub reggae. The samples, triggered by the DJ Jahi Sundance, unobtrusively added textural shading and, in lieu of announcements by the self-effacing Ndegeocello, indicated the socially conscious nature of the music.
EVENING STANDARD
Jack Massarik
April 8, 2005
Admirers of Meshell Ndegeocello note that she has put her vocal career on hold and currently prefers the company of jazz musicians to Madonna. Pop fans must feel betrayed, but the rest of us are delighted. Bandleading from the back brings out the best in this charismatic Fender-basswoman, and her music is beginning to blossom.
"Greetings," she drawled last night, hitching up her jeans, adjusting the rake of her chquered Andy-Capp and picking up the beats of DJ Jahi Sundance's closing number. "Relax, lay back, make love, do whatever ya want. Just be open to us, 'cos we're gonna be open to you." Sundance, the son of US saxophone star Oliver Lake, is Meshell's resident deckhand and builds his rhythms with care. This time he had set the power-bar pretty high, but thanks to Chris Dave, the live band easily sustained it. An awesome drummer previously heard in London with altoist Kenny Garrett, Dave displayed the kind of creative frenzy that nobody over 30 can maintain for a whole set. Meshell was laying down mean bass-guitar patterns, but her slim, whipcord drummer was stealing the show, powering the band through groove-based originals with phenomenal energy. His only failure was the kind of reggae-based beat that only Caribbeans can swing properly.
That artful keyboarder Michael Cain and the two sax soloists, Ron Blake (baritone and tenor) and newcomer Dahu Mumagi (soprano), kept their ideas sensibly simple while riding this rhythmic storm. Occasionally they also had to cope with ghost-voices from the speakers, including the sampled speech of three musical icons—Fela Kuti, Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix—and the taped blether of various political windbags. But there were gentler moments too, including the mellow title track of Meshell's latest album, Dance Of The Infidel, and a beautiful glimpse of Nefertiti, that classic Wayne Shorter ballad from the ESP era.
Clearly there is much more to Meshell than a hard-hitting beat. An evening with her builds up a comprehensive picture of international black culture. Beneath the sound and the fury, a fastidious musical mind is at work.
ATLANTA JOURNAL & CONSTITUTION
Sonia Murray
May 3, 2004
This act's long official name—"the Spirit of Music Sextet Featuring Meshell Ndegeocello"—puts her name at the end for a reason: Ndegeocello as her fans know her was an afterthought. There was no "If That's Your Boyfriend," no "Talk to Me," no "Bitter"—nothing from her old catalog.
What the rhythm-and-blues singer-songwriter unveiled was her jazz muse. It was an almost anticipated evolution, considering how the famously unpredictable talent has swiftly transitioned from incredible soul to strong religious and political statements to stark, beautiful atmospheric music and then to reggae.
Without question, the sextet played well. But judging from the occasional moan that arose in the crowd, Ndegeocello didn't play what many had expected.
MICHIGAN CITIZEN
Jonathan Cunningham
October 23, 2003
Ndegeocello's band opened its concert with powerful songs from the new album which mainly featured Ndegeocello foregoing vocals and playing bass to warm up the crowd.
The audience quickly grew restless awaiting her sultry voice, cheering as she un-strapped her bass guitar and rolled into hits such as “Come Smoke My Herb” and “Dead Nigga Blvd,” from previous albums.
As it put down dub and reggae grooves to compliment Ndegeocello’s slow and melodic vocal style the band was as impressive as its maestro. She broke during the concert to drink tea and crack jokes with band members, returning to the mic each time to captivate her audience with lover’s rock tempo and heavy bass lines.
Although Ndegeocello and her band played only an hour, the audience was not left disappointed.
DAILY VARIETY
Steven Mirkin
October 10, 2003
Band: Ndegeocello, Frank McComb, Jon-Jon Webb, Chris Dave, Sy Smith, K'alyn, Allen Cato.
Eyes closed, head titled slightly back so she leads with her chin, hands in loose fists about chest high, her shoulders shrugging rhythmically, Meshell Ndegeocello could have been shadowboxing on the House of Blues stage. Moving with a relaxed strut, she approaches her songs with the confidence of a good middleweight, powerful and wiry.
She also exhibits a remarkable self-possession, and her performance—especially the material from her new album, Comfort Woman—trades heavily in atmosphere. The music builds slowly, developing into a rich, dub reggae haze. Vocal lines drop in and out of the mix, clipped guitars hit a James Brown groove, an organ swells spacily, with Ndegeocello's swaggering bass occasionally muscling in. Sometimes, such as in the nimble, Sly Stone groove of "GOD.FEAR.MONEY," the elements snap together; other times, they simply dissipate, as in the flabby "Body."
The unfocused nature of the performance might be explained in the song "Come Smoke My Herb"; there is no denying the show's cannabis-scented languor.
With only two shows under their belt, the band members don't seem completely at home with the new material (which makes up more than half the one-hour set), tiptoeing around the smoky grooves of "Love Song #1" when they should be putting their bodies behind the punch. By the time Ndegeocello and the band gets to New York they should be more familiar with the songs.
NEWPORT DAILY NEWS
James J. Gillis
August 11, 2003
Meshell Ndegeocello: All over the map stylistically, the bassist/singer cranked out a steamy and hypnotic set of mostly reggae-based tunes. Hard to categorize, easy to enjoy.
PROVIDENCE JOURNAL BULLETIN
Andy Smith
August 11, 2003
In a very different groove was singer Meshell Ndegeocello, who occasionally picked up the bass to augment the bassist already in her band. Her style mixed singing, chanting and rapping over a bottom-heavy beat, with a Hammond B-3 organ and electric guitars creating a swirling, sometimes psychedelic sound around her.
ALL ABOUT JAZZ
David R. Adler
July 2003
Among JVC’s several pop-oriented bookings this year, one stands out. Ndegeocello is one of the most profound, searching singers and bandleaders of our time. She is not one to run down a song from an album without expanding it, interpreting it, allowing her band to recreate it from whole cloth. Nor does she strut out in front, playing the star.
At Me’Shell’s side were Raymond Angry on organ and keyboards, downtown scenester Oren Bloedow on guitar, Jesse Murphy (of Seamus Blake’s Bloomdaddies) on electric bass, Chris Dave (of Kenny Garrett’s Standard of Language band) on drums, K’Alyn on backing vocals and additional guitar, Sy Smith on backing vocals, and Gilmar Gomes on percussion. This compact unit delivered just under an hour of musical massage therapy: abstract grooves, informed by dub and hip-hop and jazz and pure funk. No top-40 hits, no vocal theatrics or melismatic overkill—just a purifying dose of underground R&B mysticism, ebbing and flowing like the seasons, lifted heavenward by Angry’s inspired harmonic tangents.
“Take it home, take it home,” said Me’Shell to the band, when it was time to close the set. And with a piquant written figure, they did—and she walked off, without a word, her job done.
MUSICTODAY.COM
Jim Allen
June 27, 2003
Me’Shell, who opened the show, is several years older and considerably less of a household name than India.Arie. While both performers are dedicated to an organic sound based on real-time instruments rather than loops and samples, their feel couldn’t be more dissimilar.
Ndegeocello appeared every inch the moody artiste, leading her band (speckled with downtown NYC avant-jazzers like former Lounge Lizard Oren Bloedow and bassist-about-town Jesse Murphy) through dark, moody, extremely dub-influenced soundscapes.
She worked mostly as a sort of funky conductor, occasionally delivering minimal, incantatory vocals and trading off on bass with Murphy. For a sound so groove-driven, it was remarkably ethereal, with guitars and keyboards providing layered tone clouds.
The diminutive bandleader didn’t go out of her way to endear herself to the audience, taking the auteur route instead and passing off only a few mumbled comments in between songs. Nevertheless, she drew a relatively warm response from the audience, which had just about filled the legendary Avery Fisher Hall by the end of her set.
Agence France Presse French
December 7, 2002
Vendredi soir, c’est Me’Shell Ndegeocello qui tenait la vedette au Liberté (6.000 places). La chanteuse féministe à la voix âpre, T-shirt noir à tête de mort et bonnet vissé sur son crane rasé, a offert un concert époustouflant. Quand Me’Shell chante, la soul music sert à exprimer la rage des damnés.
THE EVENING STANDARD (London)
Jack Massarik
November 20, 2002
First of all, that name. After the Michelle part, you pronounce it En-Deggy-Oh-Chello, with the accent on the final "Chell", and it's supposed to mean "free as a bird" in Swahili. Born in Berlin and raised in Washington DC, its adoptive owner could hardly fail to become a political animal, and as an artist she definitely is.
Radical songwriter, rapper and Fenderbassplaying singer with attitude, Meshell recently signed to Madonna's Maverick label and one of her dressing-room wellwishers last night was filmmaker Spike Lee. Dressed like an urban-guerrilla in black zipper-jacket, swim-cap hood and jeans, the lady muscled into tough grooves expertly supplied by synthman Federico Gonzales Peña, jockeying four keyboards, and superfunky drummer Gene Lake, son of jazz saxophonist Oliver Lake.
Meshell's father was a jazz saxman, too, and although pigeonholed under Soul in most record stores, her jazz-inflected performances are a clear link from Stevie, Marvin and Donny through to contemporary nu-soul heroines like Erykah, India, Angie and Lauryn, all of whose sharp-witted lyrics and solid beats appeal to US jazz's floating voters today.
As she faced her London fans, issues of sexism and racism gave way to happier topics like lurve, yet even here, her version of (Marvin's) "I Want You"—"Oh, you turn me on/ Let me have it just this once/ The forbidden always arouses my temptation"—was heavy with a tension more predatory than romantic.
Meshell may be moving into the mainstream, but she doesn't look like selling out.
VARIETY
Gary Jackson
October 29, 2002
There is no theatricality, save for her compelling ice queen stage persona, in Meshell Ndegeocello's show. She is about as straightforward and cool as the other side of the pillow, which has certainly seen many a love tryst.
Take, for example, the torrid "Barry Farms," a tune about a young, but highly experienced/experimental female interested in the chocolate smooth textures and contours of Ndegeocello. There's a shocking line that the audience knew well and relished its deliciously naughty implications.
In her four albums—Plantation Lullabies, Peace Before Passion, Bitter and this year's Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape—she reflects a brutally honest journal on the ways of the black-tar, beat/beatnik-oriented streets. Ndegeocello relied on songs mostly culled from Cookie, but delved into "Loyalty" and "Wasted Time," both from Bitter. Ndegeocello encored with "Pocketbook," Mixtape's first single release, a tight, in-the-pocket funk primer with affirmative lyrics on letting it all go, so long as the money flows.
The closest things to pop hits in her repertoire, 1993's "If That Was Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)," and her attempt at breaking through to homophobic urban radio with the difficult "Leviticus: Faggot" and "Who Is He and What Is He To You" were woefully missing from her dynamic set at the Wiltern.
Ndegeocello's music—funk slathered over steamily thick grooves by Jonathan Maron and Ndegeocello over Oliver Gene Lake's sturdy beats—is reminiscent of the Grateful Dead. The band weaved effortlessly through sonic shifts between progressive rock, jazz-fusion (with a nice Miles Davis "Jack Johnson" micro-riff in mid-set) and hip-hop beats. Keyboardist Federico Gonzalez Peña, whose direction and watercolor shadings kept the proceedings steady and refreshingly innovative, was a standout.
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Michael D. Clark
October 22, 2002
Listening to the free-spirited soul experiments of Meshell Ndegeocello is a great way to spend a cool Sunday evening. But trying to absorb her band's thick bass and keyboard funk at a smoky rock 'n' roll cathedral like Numbers reduced the enjoyment.
Focusing her decade-long career on songs about broken romance, sexual politics and racial balance, Ndegeocello is not as elegant as Erykah Badu or India.Arie. But her mix of smoky vocals and spoken-word poetry is every bit as intense. Much like Ornette Coleman or Cassandra Wilson, Ndegeocello is best heard in a low-lit dinner theater or cabaret—a place where music doesn't compete with calls for another round of beer or the beeps and blips of video games.
Ndegeocello's 90-minute performance suffered from such distractions and she appeared to be keenly aware of it.
Opening the show with unreleased song "Quentin Mack," Ndegeocello sang eyes closed all night (she battles epilepsy and flash photography has caused her to pass out). As her band hit tempo changes or she sensed sudden movements at the stagefront, she appeared to duck, as if trying to hide her smooth scalp in her shoulders, like a turtle.
Ndegeocello relaxed, moving into the groove of "The Way," but curiously, she passed electric bass duties to a bandmate.
When she emerged from the Washington, D.C., scene with her album Plantation Lullabies, the free-flowing, tightly-wrapped soul and hip-hop on that record pegged her as an up-and-coming superstar-creator like Prince.
The three albums since have moved away from that mainstream, culminating in the sociopolitical commentary of her latest release, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape.
Ndegeocello did offer up one of those old singles, "I'm Diggin' You (Like An Old Soul Record)." Her records have always been her therapy, and she appeared most interested in exploring Cookie's themes.
"Better By the Pound" was sexual poetry, slightly marred by vocals that were too soft and bass amps that were too loud. For Pocketbook, Ndegeocello grabbed her bass and, while flicking vibrating notes off her fret, talked about the corrupt joys of having money.
It was an introduction to the very complex Ndegeocello. Next time she comes to Houston, I hope it will be to a room where she and the audience can sit down and let some real musical dialogue unfold.
VILLAGE VOICE
Rob Tannenbaum
August 7-13, 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello's head is a barometer. She plays music in time signatures even Stephen Hawking couldn't count, and when her unstable soul-jazz fusion fizzes and frays, she sets her brow into a pair of parentheses, as though concentration could call the music into focus. When her band settles into a syncopated groove, she smiles contentedly, and her shoulders bob like a bantamweight's early in a bout.
Her July 26 show at the Stephen Talkhouse, a small club in Amagansett, Long Island, began more than an hour late—another victim of Friday traffic on the L.I.E.—and felt hurried even during 10-minute jams. In jeans, a striped knit cap, and a red Black Panthers T-shirt, the bassist and her six-piece band began with "Better by the Pound," a cover of Funkadelic's 1975 lecture against the call of pleasure, and focused mostly on other songs from her latest record, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape. Increasingly the bastard daughter of Joni Mitchell and Angela Davis, she's grown more political with each record, though also less doctrinaire.
She's not the first lefty to condemn corporate sponsorship, expensive sneakers, and media devils, but the part in "GOD.FEAR.MONEY" about the Devil hosting TRL and having a great apartment (on the Upper East Side, no less) is new, as is her thematic focus on breast-feeding in "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)." And in the latter song, she refuses to point the usual finger of oppression, insisting, "Niggas need to redefine what it means to be free."
For Ndegeocello, freedom comes from improvisation, which she has called the metaphorical root of the African American experience. She steers her music toward its sources, slipping Prince, the Police, and Bob Marley into jams. Of course, improvisation is also a private pleasure, not a public one, and Ndegeocello is no showman: She never acknowledged the crowd (who paid $60 for a 65-minute show), didn't play any of her few songs a casual fan might recognize, and didn't speak beyond introducing the band. Effusiveness? That she reserves for her bass solos.
BOSTON GLOBE
Ken Capobianco
July 19, 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello is all about passion. Passion for her music, for a human connection, for justice and clarity in a world of ambiguity and chaos. You get a sense of this in her recent record, the ambitious Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, as well as in her entire catalog, which dates to 1993. But nowhere is her passion more evident than in live performances, during which the singer-song writer-bass player always burns white hot, as she did during her two-hour set at the Paradise on Tuesday night.
Ndegeocello plays an intimate brand of jazzy funk that knows no boundaries. Her music doesn't adhere to standard pop limitations that rely on three-minute singles, hooks, and catchy choruses. The songs are extended, elastic grooves that breathe and beg for reinvention. On record, as on Cookie, they can seem a bit ponderous and meandering, but when she performs, the tunes come alive as if she and her spectacular five-piece band were discovering them for the first time. For most of the night, Ndegeocello stood before the audience with her eyes closed, bobbing back and forth with her hands clenched, looking like Sugar Ray Leonard shadowboxing behind the microphone. Wearing a beaded hat pulled down to her eyebrows, she sang and rapped with subtlety, strapping on her bass only during intervals between songs. Mostly, this was Ndegeocello the vocalist allowing her band to find the groove and let it rip.
It's understandable why Ndegeocello has been embraced by the jam band audience, as her songs, most of them this night from Cookie, were extended to 10 minutes, sometimes beyond. Each musician was given ample time to show his stuff. Guitarist Allen Cato fired out spiraling leads that often leaned toward the metallic side of the map, at times conjuring the late Parliament player Eddie Hazel. You have to handle the bass with dexterity if you are playing behind Ndegeocello, and David Dyson handled the demanding duties lucidly, even going toe-to-toe with her during an extended workout of "Barry Farms." Federico Gonzalez Peña fleshed out the melodies on keyboards, adding vivid color with synthesizers.
Some jams seemed to wash over the crowd, though, and an extended encore was redundant. Sometimes performers need to know when enough is enough. But that's quibbling about an expansive night of soulful funk from a true musical maverick.
BOSTON HERALD
Sarah Rodman
July 18, 2002
Some people play music, Meshell Ndegeocello feels it.
The revolution-minded bassist-singer-songwriter and her five-man band felt their way through a two-hour set Tuesday night at the Paradise that was by turns transcendent and soporific.
Astute listeners could be forgiven if the songs from Ndegeocello' s newest album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, were unrecognizable. Ndegeocello used the highly politicized tunes of black self-destruction, empowerment, love and fear only as a blueprint for her own emotional improvisation and those of her virtuosic players. They blended dirty funk, jazz fusion, hip-hop attitude and gospel-informed soul into a heady brew.
"Better By the Pound" was a mass of quivering chimes, spacey keyboard meanderings and Ndegeocello's husky proclamations about material pleasures and mysticism. An angry funk vibe permeated "GOD.FEAR.MONEY," which featured one of several piercing and eruptive guitar solos. "Earth" conjured up images of sultry nights as Ndegeocello murmured sweetly to an unseen lover.
Though the three-quarters-capacity crowd was subdued but attentive for the most part, pockets of noisy chatter arose and a trickle of patrons headed for the exits around the 80-minute mark.
It was hard to tell whether listeners grew restless with the lack of familiar tunes, the relentlessly mellow pace of the show or Ndegeocello's introverted demeanor. She kept her eyes closed in personal reverie as the band played one impeccable midtempo groove after another. Of course, her introversion could've been a reaction to the crowd's flagging enthusiasm. Either way, the atmosphere became sluggish when it should have been peaking.
The band rallied at the end, however. Ndegeocello and bassist Dave Dyson—who has come a long way from backing up the New Kids on the Block—locked into a frenetic, ecstatic bass duel, over a thunderous Zeppelin-esque groove, that had the audience hooting wildly. That duet led to an equally molten guitar solo that evoked Prince at his baddest before morphing into a jubilant chorus of his "Sign O' the Times."
L.A. JAZZ SCENE
Chris J. Walker
July 2002
Idiosyncratic funkateer, bassist/singer Meshell Ndegeocello, has been playing tunes from Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape for close to a year now at various live shows. Nevertheless, there was great anticipation among the packed Roxy crowd before she played to celebrate the CD's long awaited release.
Originally, slated for a February/March debut, the CD is now officially out and the bassist played selections that sound as fresh as ever. The street oriented funk of "Pocketbook" rocked the house as the show opener, with her five-man band in great form. Along with the aid of two backup singers, she proceeded to ake things to a much higher level of intensity with "GOD.FEAR.MONEY." The bandleader's bass playing was arresting hard funk and was profoundly augmented by scorching guitar solos. There wasn't any confusing her music that went from near X-rated sensuality of "Stay," to unrelenting rocking funk jams, with lightweight pop stuff on the radio. Additionally, Ndegeocello's resonating soulful singing, illuminating spoken word and her alternating between bass and keyboards were prominently featured.
Unquestionably, all in the audience were affected by her band's fiery playing, and what they played definitely wasn't pop/funk for the masses.
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Patrick Berkery
June 15, 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello was in do-not-disturb-this-groove mode at the Theatre of Living Arts on Thursday night—off in some slow-turning galaxy filled with mystics, prophets and deep funk vibes, a place most listeners will visit only vicariously.
The petite singer-bassist stayed near her microphone, and occasionally strapped on a weathered Fender bass. Mostly, though, she juked and bobbed in place with eyes closed and fists clenched, leaning into the syncopated cadences of her raps, or swaying with the flow as she scatted and vamped through a laid-back cover of Funkadelic's "Better By the Pound."
Occasionally, she exchanged knowing glances with her seriously tight five-piece band. Judging by their furious improvisational stretches (an extended tease of Stevie Wonder's "Too High" crept into the mix like a divine gift) and immovable funk foundations ("Dead Nigga Blvd." had a groove that worked the hips and lyrics that worked the mind), they were off in the same galaxy.
If there was a bump in the road on this cosmic journey, it was the lack of give-and-take between Ndegeocello and her audience. That there was a full house seeking salvation in her words—the revolutionary, the sexual and the vulnerable—seemed merely a matter of commerce. Perhaps feeling alienated, some fans checked out before the nearly two-hour show ended after midnight.
POP MATTERS
Kandia Crazy Horse
June 12, 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello is not a mere popstar, but a woman with a mission. A sonic revolutionary, if you will. Thus the questing masses were out in force at her Manhattan date to receive the Message. Ndegeocello's current new release, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, displays her as not merely an enthusiast for hard-edged black poetry from various eras of the last century (spanning from the publicly closeted Harlem Renaissance master Countee Cullen—who was once wed to deified New Negro scholar W.E.B. DuBois' daughter Yolande—to prison poet and habitual junkie Etheridge Knight) but also the devotee of the best of polemical soul music as embodied by the late great Curtis Mayfield. The lugubrious and smoky stage space, in addition to intermittent sociopolitical musings, seemed to transform the Ballroom into the Bottom Line and similar rooms wherein black artists of the '70s golden era recorded live albums which are now the stuff of legend.
From the Cookie-derived opener "Pocketbook", Mama Meshell's legend continued its progression, ratified by giddy critics, comely Afro-chic lesbian couples, hip-hop heads, aging hippies, wiccans and regular working class blackfolk enlightened enough to embark on adventure with Urbanworld's own Joan of Arc. The crowd was rewarded with precious few bass popping interludes from her—my sole gripe, other than the absence of revisiting "Leviticus: Faggot"—yet hung on her every utterance and sigh nonetheless.
"I like blue," she said, constantly urging the techs to eliminate the stage lights. Ultimately, Ndegeocello was nothing but a shadow in a blue gloom, a limned being from whom flowed wisdom and Mellow. She stayed away from any up-tempo material, beyond a heartening Go-Go breakdown (for those of us DC natives in the house) and Peace Beyond Passion's great "Deuteronomy: Niggerman". The Funkadelic cover "Better By The Pound" (as on disc) was slowed down and stretched out almost beyond recognition, the famous refrain of "There's a tidal wave of mysticism surging through our space-age generation... It's all designed to take us to the sky" echoing again and again across the room like a wave, inferred as her personal mantra. Certainly, with each subsequent recorded offering, Ndegeocello's cosmic consciousness has seemed to grow by leaps and bounds, reflected in the complexity of her lyrics and arrangements.
The guiding voices of Gil Scott-Heron, Angela Davis et al so prominent on the record were absent live, one of the stray references to that cache of "primordial" wisdom being a jazzy exploration of Stevie Wonder's "Too High". Beyond the sharp "GOD.FEAR.MONEY" and the satirically scathing attack on bling-bling subculture that is "Priorities 1-6", the music expanded into one virtually amorphous suite, the intimacy and muted energy attributed to Sunday night. The focus was on the new album's sensual explorations such as "Barry Farms" and harkened back to older sultry standards such as "Stay" and "Let Me Have You". All was awash in mind-and-mood altering eroticism, the laidback band supporting the endeavor to turn everybody out and free our asses.
DAILY VARIETY
Steven Mirkin
June 7, 2002
Like her new album Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, Meshell Ndegeocello's performance is a study in contradictions. As turbulent and unpredictable as a storm system, the music has a slow motion drama that feels like fronts clashing: simultaneously humid and airy, spacey and grounded, dreamy and funky. She doesn't so much write songs as atmospheres, with woozy textures and roiling rhythms.
A powerful bassist, on this tour, she only intermittently picks up her instrument, concentrating instead on her deep, chanted vocals that limn a minefield where the romantic and commercial both hold sway. "You sell your soul like you sell your ass," she sings at one point.
With her six-piece band she creates a seductive mood, the instruments not so much locking into rhythms as indicating them, producing a jazzy wash of sound that's less clotted than Miles Davis' early '70s work such as "Big Fun" or "On the Corner." A choked, skeletal James Brown guitar drives "GOD.FEAR.MONEY," "Pocketbook" has the chunky asymmetry of dub reggae, and the skittish rhythms of "Earth" find their fulcrum in Oliver Gene Lake's restrained drumming.
It takes a great deal of talent to make such controlled music that sounds like it is teetering on the verge of chaos. But with a Zen-like calm, Ndegeocello embraces both extremes, finding a hypnotic soulfulness in the balance.
NEW YORK TIMES
Jon Parales
June 6, 2002
Funk has its share of pragmatists who just want to make people dance. It also has mystics like Meshell Ndegeocello, who hear sex and revolution, culture and nature in the ways instruments mesh to share a groove. Her set on Sunday night at the Bowery Ballroom was a series of unhurried vamps that left room for her to sing, to rap, to talk and to moan. She was introducing songs from her new album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, persuading and seducing side by side.
Ms. Ndegeocello has a lot on her mind. "God bless America," she mused. "Why just America?"
Her new single, "Pocketbook," observes a woman with money in her pocketbook, an eye on the world and the urge to "shake that thing." Other songs ponder bisexual flirtations, success and the clichés of hip-hop video; in "GOD.FEAR.MONEY," she envisions a returned Jesus thrown in jail while the Devil appears on MTV's "Total Request Live."
What her songs share is a longing for freedom of all kinds: civil, economic, sexual. She sees obstacles, but she is too hard-headed to gripe. With her deep, husky voice, Ms. Ndegeocello matter-of-factly observes the follies around her, but then she lets herself sing, dropping her defenses to melt into intimacy. In her songs, common sense and sensuality keep close company. "I ain't gonna pay your rent/ 'Cause all I got is love," she sang.
Funk is the songs' universe: their pulse, their colors, their atmosphere. Ms. Ndegeocello, who played bass every so often during her set, knows funk from the rhythm section on up, and she can make even the slowest tempos dance. She and her band look to other funk mystics—George Clinton, Marvin Gaye, Prince, latter-day Miles Davis—who used wide-open spaces and jazz harmonies, but she comes up with her own hybrids.
In the course of her set, she led the band in funk with the snapping beat of Washington's go-go music and funk that oozed like a bubbling tar pit. She led funk that twinkled with jazz chords on electric piano and funk that bristled with fuzz-tone guitar. She led funk that throbbed deep and low, funk that rolled in as smoothly as a fog bank and funk that slithered with rattlesnake cymbal accents.
Before Ms. Ndegeocello sang "Earth," which is full of vows like "let my sweet, sweet ocean caress your shore," she had her spotlight turned off, as if she wanted to disappear into the groove. Her fans were ready to join her, dancing along.
NEWSDAY
Glenn Gamboa
June 5, 2002
Still walking that big-grooved, neo-soul walk, still talking that politically charged, consciousness-raising talk. Meshell Ndegeocello has always been two steps ahead of the rest of the world. She was doing the pop-flavored brand of neo-soul that's all the rage today back when Alicia Keys was in middle school. She was helping fuel the funk revival long before Nike rediscovered the '70s for those basketball ads. She was rapping eloquently and fluidly long before "The Eminem Show" began.
On her latest album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, Ndegeocello sounds like she has slowed her roll a bit, like she's come back to the pack—though that's due, in part, to a long delay in the release of the album. She hasn't been sitting idle for the past nine months, however, which becomes obvious during her impressive live show.
In fact, it sounds like she already has left Cookie behind. The original tracks, such as "Hot Night" and "GOD.FEAR.MONEY," are simply jumping-off points for Ndegeocello and her excellent band to explore the intersection of hip-hop, funk, jazz, rock and experimental sounds.
"You don't need to know my words to feel the vibe," Ndegeocello said, explaining how the entire show would likely be songs that her fans had never heard before. "It's about the vibration." Throughout the 75-minute set, the vibration was always right, a laid-back groove that was a constant. The variables were how Ndegeocello decided to twist it, with her raps or sultry low-register singing or funky bass guitar.
At one point, she asks the crowd what albums first "blew your mind" and then explains how for her it was Miles Davis' "Deep Funk" and Parliament-Funkadelic's "Flashlight." Elements of both albums then make their way into her set.
Ndegeocello closed the set with her strongest statement from Cookie, the insightful "Dead Nigga Blvd," which addresses the next phase of civil rights, with raps like "Somebody said our greatest destiny is to become white/ But white is not pure and hate is not pride/ Just cuz civil rights is law doesn't mean that we all abide."
She delivers this song as she does most of them, her eyes closed, her body dramatizing every beat with tapping feet, bent knees and a knowing smile that comes from reciting something you believe in. Ndegeocello may not be an Eminem-level seller, but she has the strength of her convictions and the power of her words.
BET.com
Jon Caramanica
June 2, 2002
It's smoky on stage, even though no one's lit up a cigarette. A Meshell Ndegeocello show is something like a back room in a red-light district—discreet in its eroticism yet somehow transgressive. Meshell the mack was on proud display during her set tonight, much to the delight of the crowd, which was clearly in the mood for a bit of drippy love potion.
Meshell opened with "Pocketbook," from her new album Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape. On the record, there's a radio-catering remix of the song that features Tweet and Redman. But she hewed close to the original tonight, demonstrating to her diehard fans that she and her vision weren't going anywhere, and then segueing into a smattering of older selections, including the sultry "Let Me Have You," "Stay" and "Deuteronomy: Niggerman."
But as a celebration of her new album, this concert drew more from the drippy, hypersensual material that makes up Cookie. She lingered over the sexual tete-a-tete that is "Barry Farms" and luxuriated in the optimistic grooves of "Priorities 1-6." She exhorted the crowd to slapping asses and swapping deep, enveloping kisses. There was the odd political rant against institutional racism, colonialism and, of course, hip-hop materialism, but Meshell's much more exciting as a passionist than a polemicist. The textures of her heart are rendered in such explicit detail that they're impossible to ignore.
Her band is honed sharply enough to back her every transition. They noodled with go-go and jazz excursions, but mostly stuck with the funk, the bass slaps impossibly loud and guitar work nimble and energizing.
For well over an hour, Meshell and her entourage held court on stage. Later in the night, they made their way to Joe's Pub, a spacious yet intimate venue slightly further uptown from the Bowery Ballroom. The previous night, she'd played a smaller show here and, at the time her last album, Bitter, was released, she turned Joe's Pub into her own personal confession station, turning in a pair of devastating stripped-down performances that perfectly complemented the raw, untamed emotion of that project.
Tonight, though, she was in jovial spirits, taking long drags on a cigarette and making nice with the crowd, most of whom had walked over from the performance. Marc Anthony Thompson, frontman of Chocolate Genius, lounged on a circular chaise and Kofi Taha, Meshell's manager, made the social rounds, accepting well wishes from the likes of cultural critic Greg Tate and star photographer Mark Seliger.
Through it all, the star herself was the picture of calm. Sauntering around the venue in her snugly-fitting Adidas track jacket, she conversed with friends old and new. Once the New York band Project Brass set up, she surreptitiously worked her way to the stage, announcing them and then sitting in on bass for a couple of tracks. After a few minutes, she stepped into the crowd, content to let the night go on without her.
HUSHBOX
Michael K. Watts
June 2, 2002
650-plus fans of Meshell Ndegeocello crammed into The Bowery Ballroom for a liberating musical experience they would never forget. People stood shoulder-to-shoulder, chests pressed to backs-a sea of unknown faces chained and bound by their collective experiences on a journey to uncertain musical domains.
As the chords from Plantation Lullabies rang through the halls of room, souls were transported out of their hot and sweaty bodies to take a closer look at themselves, each other. (For many of us, a mirror just ain't enough!) Ndegeocello humbly stepped up to the mic and calmly let loose.
From the top of the evening, fans got a preview of Ndegeocello's fourth album Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, due in stores just two days after this sold-out show. She gave up the funk with her single "Pocketbook," shed some light on the devil's work in "GOD.FEAR.MONEY," and showed fans a tree-top view of the stars with her remake of Funkadelic's "Better By the Pound." (Think about it.)
It was evident that Ndegeocello was in control, the maestro of her 5-piece band. She took her time, making sure her messages sank in slowly but deeply. Once the conscious poet-singer had the crowd under her spell, she took them back to the time when love, not material wealth, satisfied their souls. The crowd went up when she belted out "Soul Searchin' (I Wanna Know If It's Mine)" from the Higher Learning soundtrack. (Don't nobody want me/ don't nobody kiss me/ the way you do.) "It's a magical night. I am just trying to feel the magic," she humbly responded to the roaring crowd. But that was just the beginning.
Ndegeocello ripped the place wide open with a fiery performance of 1996's "Stay," with its hypnotic harmonica solo and electric guitar finale that sent hot flashes through the crowd. Returning to her new material, she broke down what she calls "Priorities 1-6"-just a few of the urban myths and customs perpetuated by unmentionable iced-out, doped up, hood-shoutin'-out hip-hoppers. After jokingly contemplating a guest spot on MTV's "Cribs," Ndegeocello offered a musical alternative for the new hip-hop generation: Go-Go with a little extra bounce.
The former session musician took the crowd back once again-this time to her days in the epicenter of Go-Go music, her native Washington, D.C. The band cranked up the bounce-heavy "Barry Farms," a song about a girl who likes to creep behind her boyfriend's back on the DL-with another girl. Why does she creep? Ndegeocello whispered into the mic, "Can't nobody eat my pussy the way that you do." Enough said? As shouts swelled in the room and folks started high-fiving, Ndegeocello brought them back to earth: "But you should teach your boy to do that."
As the lights faded to a dim blue, Ndegeocello reminded the crowd what true love is with the ethereal "Earth," but she also warned them not to be blinded by love in "Deuteronomy: Niggerman." With the fans' attention on a musical high, Ndegeocello shared a poignant story of her experiences in New York City on September 11. As the band grooved to a Caribbean bassline, Ndegeocello let fans feel what she felt that day in a new, unreleased song entitled "Fellowship." Fans stood swaying in silence, some with their hands in the air. "God bless America-why just America? And who's god are you talking about?" Ndegeocello philosophized as the crowd cheered in agreement.
When Ndegeocello and her band made an unexpected departure, the newly-liberated crowd roared, hungrily begging the funky soul sista to come back and feed them more. Ndegeocello obliged with "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)," her lyrics hitting hard and the bassline sinking it all in. ("No longer do I blame white folks for the way that we be/ cuz niggas need to redefine what it means to be free.") The band then kicked in the finale, an electric "Pt. 2" reprise of the same song, as Ndegeocello gave the fans her last words. "Can't gain the world and lose your soul," she bellowed.
When it was all sung and done, souls reclaimed their bodies, enriched and rejuvenated, and headed home... reborn. In just an hour and 45 minutes, Ndegeocello gave her fans more than they ever dreamed of, and just what they needed.
If you missed Meshell Ndegeocello on tour this summer, you must own a copy of her latest album Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape.
ALL ABOUT JAZZ
David R. Adler
June 2002
One of the things that makes singer-songwriter-bassist Me’Shell Ndegeocello so compelling is her firm connection to the jazz and creative music scene. At a special Sunday night showcase at the Jazz Gallery, she made a rare appearance as a side-person, playing bass behind her monster keyboardist Federico Gonzalez Peña, with Gregoire Maret on harmonica and Me’Shell regular Gene Lake on drums—a unit known as "Astilla."
After sitting out the first tune (an atmospheric keyboard/harmonica duet), Ndegeocello hustled down the aisle (no applause), strapped on the bass, and disappeared behind a music stand. After a subdued and somewhat shaky start, the band began to rev its engines, enticing Roy Hargrove to break out his horn and contribute some devastating stuff on a thumping groove in 4+6 meter. Hargrove stuck around for the next one, a rocking, Batman-like bass line with a B section based on Me’Shell’s "Outside Your Door." Peña wrapped up with a hip, full-on funk version of "Freedom Jazz Dance," playing the first two phrases slow and the third one double-time, with a thunderclap of a hit at the end.
By this time Ndegeocello was up and dancing, and Gene Lake was unleashing chops. Peña’s a serious player, full of harmonic savvy and sonic inventiveness; his arsenal includes some frighteningly good sampled percussion.
CLEVELAND FREE TIMES
Daniel Gray-Kontar
May 29-June 4, 2002
Shortly after Me’Shell Ndegeocello’s hourlong performance, a few audience members discussed what they had just witnessed. In more than one conversation, some compared the go-go-princess-turned-neo-jazz-funkateer to jazz legend Miles Davis—a comparison that seemed absurd. How could Ndegeocello compare to Davis, the most protean musician of the last half of the 20th century? For me, comparing the two seemed the epitome of hyperbole.
But the proof, for these audience members, was in Ndegeocello’s onstage demeanor and performance style, itself a natural mixture of aloof cool with free-spirited cathartic release. Both are traits that Davis typified throughout his lengthy career as the jazz world’s most luminous figure, and for her part, Ndegeocello seemed to master the spirit—if not quite the substance—of Davis’ onstage musicianship.
When Ndegeocello was truly in her element, she caressed her bass guitar, playing with her back turned to the audience for long stretches of time. This nuance informed a conscious separation between herself and her audience, as Davis had done years before Ndegeocello was even born. For Ndegeocello, like countless jazz bandleaders before her, the swing’s the thing. And you could tell throughout the evening, as she danced through the individual rhythm of her own soul force—eyes closed, head bobbing, bass thumping. When Ndegeocello reemerged from her trancelike state, she communicated with her audience in short, raw phrases: "This is the part where you need to put your eye on whoever you’re trying to talk to this evening, so you can cut to the chase."
But beyond the mere performance aesthetic, Ndegeocello also trusted the audience’s intelligence enough to allow them to go on the spiritual musical journey along with her, and ultimately challenged them to tread musical waters unknown. When the audience wanted more, Ndegeocello offered less. When it wanted the groove to end, she ground it out. In this way, Ndegeocello’s skills as a bandleader emerge as an extension of her doggedly honest sexual politics. She says it the way she wants to say it, and fuck you if you don’t want to hear it.
Songs like the provocative "Deuteronomy: Niggerman" typify this. During it, Ndegeocello defied the original melodic structure of the record with a bass-driven version that seemed more like a jam session than what appears on record. Without warning, the groove morphed into Stevie Wonder’s classic "Too High." Those who knew their classic Wonder went nuts.
But does all this mean that Ndegeocello should be mentioned in the same breath as Miles Davis? Probably not. But the bare naked truth of Ndegeocello’s artistic integrity was enough to allot her some sort of greatness.
CHICAGO DEFENDER
Earl Calloway
May 28, 2002
Judging from the attraction's audience who packed Park West, she has certainly developed an audience.
First of all, Meshell has a dynamic personality and one of the best advantages to her audience in the manner in which she communicates.
She has a superlative gift of song and a marvelous manner of articulating her dialogue. Her rap isn't delivered in the old choppy sing-song style that is often heard from screaming and jellybean-jumping rappers usually heard. She has an impeccable style.
It stands beyond question with the highest ranks of international individuality. She fascinates her audience as she electrifies them with her ethnic recitative. She delivers her melodies with brilliance and sensitivity, however, she explodes also with varying dynamics.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Greg Kot
May 22, 2002
Drumbeats flickered like fireflies, keyboards swooned into murky pools of atmosphere, and bass—the ever-lovin' bass—swaggered down Sly Stone Boulevard.
Meshell Ndegeocello and her band, the Brethren, turned the Park West into a dimly lit sanctuary Sunday where secrets could be shared and messages of sex and salvation mingled. Their brand of funk welcomed poetry from the bohemian cafes, jazz from Miles Davis' early electric period, and hip-hop attitude from a Bronx streetcorner. Ndegeocello didn't perform songs so much as massage them, using the tunes from her forthcoming album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mix Tape, as blueprints for extended vocal and instrumental improvisation. These songs wrestle with imposing realities ("God, fear and money make your world go 'round") and find rapture in deep spiritual connection ("Before I touch you, learn to love you").
Ndegeocello isn't an imposing singer, and she's so tiny that she couldn't reach the tuning pegs on her bass guitar while it's strapped to her shoulders. But she commanded the stage with a personality both sensual and strident, favoring a sing-speak vocal style that suggested she was making up her lyrics on the spot. The confidence was no doubt enhanced by a band attentive to her every move, a unit schooled in spontaneity rather than lock-step replication. The band's other bassist, David Dyson, was a mighty anchor, while drummer Gene Lake danced around the beat and Federico Gonzalez Peña conjured planets of sound on his array of keyboards.
KANKAKEE DAILY JOURNAL
Andy Argyrakis
May 21, 2002
She's the bald-headed bass player most people have probably never heard of, but once they do, they'll be sold on her ability to articulately express herself across a soulful dichotomy.
A packed Park West Sunday night confirmed Meshell Ndegeocello's spot in the urban community as a notable songwriter, vocal advocate for racial rights, sexual liberation, and spiritual expression, and a bassist who can make your whole body rattle.
Ndegeocello began her career nearly a decade ago with Plantation Lullabies, a record that contained the minor hit "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)." Other than that, the only other mainstream recognition she received came from her duet with John Mellencamp on their cover of Van Morrison's "Wild Night."
Since then, Ndegeocello's been able to pay partial tribute to the likes of Prince, Nina Simone, and Stevie Wonder, while also paving the way for relatively new soul sisters India.Arie, Alicia Keys, and Jill Scott, along with their industry brothers Maxwell, Glenn Lewis, and Craig David. Ironically, she hasn't earned quite as much commercial attention as any of the above, although she has been recognized with seven Grammy nominations and spots in many films. (Her list of soundtrack contributions include "How Stella Got Her Groove Back," "Batman & Robin," "The Hurricane," "Higher Learning," and "White Man's Burden".) Even more impressive is Ndegeocello's list of bass playing session work that's kept her occupied in-between albums and tours. Most recently, she contributed to Alanis Morissette's "Under Rug Swept" record, and has worked on recording sessions for Madonna, Lenny Kravitz, The Rolling Stones, George Clinton, Herbie Hancock, and Prince.
Speaking of Prince, Ndegeocello brought Sunday's crowd back to his Sign O' the Times period, intertwining thematic freedom and party-flavored jazz, R&B, funk, and soul. Her forthcoming album Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape also embodies such qualities, with a little bit of rap thrown in for fun. Unlike most crowds that would be somewhat skeptical of an album that is yet to be released, those at the Park West kept an open mind when it came to the cuts from Cookie. Previews of tunes including "Hot Night" and "Earth" carried just as much weight as older material such as "Mary Magdalene" and "I'm Diggin' You (Like An Old Soul Record)."
The main drawback of Ndegeocello's set was the backing band's occasional drifting from a selection and settling into a drowsy jam session. At times, their improvisations seemed more like background music than the centerpiece of the evening, and if anything, were self-indulgent. Even though some fans still stuck with them the whole night, many others rotated from the bar to the lobby.
SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
P.J. Corkery
May 16, 2002
Raspy-voiced Meshell Ndegeocello sold out Bimbo's. She knows how to get the reeds writhing right. Before her opening, she dined at Moose's with a large group of pals. Moose quizzed her musically and pronounces himself impressed. So you know she's got taste.
WWW.TATINI.NET
Mauro Tatini
April 17, 2002
The October 25, 2001 gig at the Brooklyn Arts Museum was something Meshell did without her band. They actually wanted her to do a solo 30-minute gig, and she said "I'm a bass player! I can't do a solo gig"-so she called Morgan Craft. He plays with Paul Thompson, of projectbrass. He played guitar with a lot of loops and effects. Meshell played bass and keys—she'd loop the bass live on stage and then play keys on top of it—along with all of those sampled voices she has.
She also played an excerpt of Anne Heche's interview with Barbara Walters in the middle of the whole thing, which was hilarious. Paul actually joined them at the last minute for trumpet effects—so it was the three of them, just jamming. The whole thing was amazing.
There were two other acts, and they had a party afterwards.
UPSCALE
Gilda N. Squire
December/January 2002
One of the great things about living in New York City is being able to recount sitting in on what seems like a private jam session hosted by musician and singer Meshell Ndegeocello. On a breezy Tuesday night, tucked away in downtown Manhattan is the Village Underground where fans of several races and ages, male and female, heterosexual and homosexual, sat, squatted and stood within breaths of one another to get a first listen to Ndegeocello's latest work.
Performing non-stop for nearly two hours, Ndegeocello and her intimate band of musicians gave the captivated audience a dose of a serious combination of soul, funk and a touch of jazz. Known for her provocative lyrics, Ndegeocello does not disappoint with a spirited collection of songs that she authored, including the hypnotically funky "GOD.FEAR.MONEY" and "Satisfy," as well as the laid back "Pocketbook."
Produced by longtime guitarist and friend Allen Cato, Cookie provides listeners with a much-needed and healthy serving of Ndegeocello's "soul food." It's been a little while since we heard from her (think 1999's Bitter and its single "Fool Of Me" which was featured on the Love and Basketball soundtrack), but it's good to have this die-hard musician and lyricist back on the scene—as evidenced by the sold-out crowds who eagerly awaited those Tuesday night private jam sessions at the Underground.
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Kevin C. Johnson
December 11, 2001
While Meshell Ndegeocello is three months away from releasing her fourth CD, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, her St. Louis fans were lucky enough to get a preview serving of the Cookie songs.
In Sunday night's stop at The Pageant on a tour in which she is road-testing the CD, Ndegeocello promised, and warned, right off the top of "a lot of new stuff. I'm letting you know that in advance." No one seemed to mind that the CD she drew most heavily from during the concert was the unreleased one. That meant fans couldn't count on hearing her greatest hits. But with Ndegeocello, it's not about greatest hits anyway.
The diminutive singer-songwriter-bassist with oversized talent has always worked outside the mainstream with her thoughtful R&B. She has never been a radio or commercial favorite, save for some success for her "Wild Night" duet with John Mellencamp; her Bill Withers cover, "Who Is He and What Is He to You" and perhaps "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)." None of those songs was included in the concert, although she and her tighter-than-tight band did offer earlier favorites such as "Outside Your Door," "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart," and "Deuteronomy: Niggerman." The latter song unexpectedly dipped into Stevie Wonder's "Too High" for an extended break.
Ndegeocello, who jumped off and on the bass and also worked out the keyboards, wanted fans to leave The Pageant knowing Cookie songs such as "Pocketbook," which deservedly will be the first single on the CD.
Other funky tunes that will be on the CD are overflowing with sociopolitical themes. Those songs include "Dead Nigga Blvd.," "Earth," "Bla Bla Bla Dyba Dyba Dyba," "Barry Farms" and "GOD.FEAR.MONEY." The common thread is the strong funk vibe and bouncier beats, all hinting that Ndegeocello could be inching toward a breakthrough to the next level.
One downer: Despite a pre-show plea from Ndegeocello's manager that absolutely no flash photography was allowed because the singer suffers from epilepsy, one fan took a flash shot anyway, causing her to pass out shortly after the concert.
Singer-guitarist Chocolate Genius, another artist who works outside the mainstream, did not live up to his exaggerated, ridiculous name in his opening set. He was at least different as he mixed blues, rock and gospel influences. But that didn't always translate to engaging. One minute, he coarsely requested a sex act; the next, he was casting Jesus as a black man from New Jersey. The set did not gel until Ndegeocello joined Chocolate Genius during his final song.
WASHINGTON POST
Teresa Wiltz
November 18, 2001
One recent Saturday night at the Birchmere, the mood was mellow, even somber. Buppies and bohos sat clustered at tables, ordering fried chicken nuggets and sipping on Coronas. Onstage, D.C. native Meshell Ndegeocello, an alterna-soul singer-musician, served up humor, pathos, politics and a thumping bass line with scathing anti-war commentary.
"Express yourself," Ndegeocello said. "Soon we won't be able to. We'll all be on lockdown."
She pulled out a picture, her newly acquired "Bling-Bling Jesus," a glittery picture of Christ that she bought in sardonic obedience to what she sees as President Bush's entreaties: "God Bless America. Keep shopping; we are open for business."
For Ndegeocello, patriotism is a complicated affair. There is the pressure she believes artists feel to make another "We Are the World" record, to spend their own cash in expensive studio time and then forward the proceeds to charity.
"It's hard to love where you come from when the truth is buried so deep," she said. "You can be gung-ho patriotic... But understand, people are struggling every day."
"I pray for Brother Bush, I really do. When he says Osama bin Laden wasn't elected. Well (expletive), neither were you."
Her words were met with laughter—and a standing ovation.
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
John Lappen
November 14, 2001
Click here to read the full review.
LAUNCH
Denise McIver
November 12, 2001
Despite the hard-driving rain and the marrow-chilling winds from the north, throngs of stalwart fans, industry types, and curiosity lookie-loos turned out to witness Meshell Ndegeocello in full artistic effect during the second of her two nights at L.A.'s Roxy. With a slightly pared-down band and one additional vocalist, Meshell once again proved that in addition to being an artist of significant merit, she is also one who steadfastly refuses to compromise her vision and whose chief pursuit is to explore and expand musical boundaries.
This has resulted in Meshell growing bolder and more confident musically. As an artist, Meshell is not given to self-pity or self-recrimination, and she's more than willing to ask of herself the hardest questions. The payoff has allowed Meshell to deepen her work and more fully hone her musical vision.
Meshell's performance was more than simply engaging. With the opener "Quentin Mack," she took immediate control. And later, when she strapped on her bass, she nimbly demonstrated why she is possibly one of the most accomplished bass players of her generation. Throughout the show, Meshell was, by turns, seductive, fierce, vulnerable, and honest.
The dazzling, 90-minute-plus set presented a balanced mixture of older material from her past three albums (Bitter, Peace Beyond Passion, and Plantation Lullabies) such as "Satisfy," "Outside Your Door," "Faithful," "Deuteronomy: Niggerman," and "Wasted Time," combined with some well-conceived and deliberately thought-provoking new material from her upcoming release Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape. Songs like "GOD.FEAR.MONEY," "Dead Nigga Blvd.," and "Better By The Pound" were steely looks at/sonic indictments of today's sorry state of our society and culture, and even our humanity.
Meshell paid homage to Jimi Hendrix via an electrifying rendition of "Power Of Love," and to Stevie Wonder with "Too High." One of the evening's many standout moments included vocalist K'Alyn's heart-wrenching solo delivery of "Wasted Time," which received hearty and extended applause from the standing-room-only crowd.
LIVE DAILY
Ben Williams
November 2, 2001
Singer-bassist Meshell Ndegeocello and her stellar seven-piece band, while playing the last of four performances at New York's Village Underground on Wednesday (10/31), stretched out, relaxed and turned songs both old and new inside-out.
The concerts were billed as a preview of Ndegeocello's fourth album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, which is set to be released in February, but the band mixed in plenty of favorites from her first three albums in the course of the two-and-a-half hour show—and the singer took time out for some good-natured preaching, too.
Dressed down in sneakers and sportswear, Ndegeocello played to the crowd, discoursed on the war in Afghanistan, asked for the lights to be dimmed so she could display her "bling bling Jesus"—a picture of Christ with illuminated red lights circling his head—and critiqued the nouveau-riche gaucherie of the rappers who appear on MTV's "Cribs." The audience, effectively a home crowd of denim-and-dreadlocked soul sisters, lapped it all up.
When Ndegeocello first burst onto the musical scene amid much hype back in 1993, she presaged the "neo-soul" movement that was to sweep through black music just a few years later, and that spirit was much in evidence tonight. The band dropped into excerpts from Parliament's "Flashlight," Stevie Wonder's "Too High" and Bob Marley's "War" at various moments, emphasizing the history behind Ndegeocello's tunes. The communal atmosphere was reinforced when an unnamed singer (Stokley of Mint Condition) was invited on stage for a few minutes to drop honeyed scat vocals on "Too High."
Treating Ndegeocello's original tunes as a jump-off point for jamming, the musicians effortlessly segued from killer funk workouts to jazz-inflected improvisations to soulful vocals, changing moods and tempos at will. The approach was exemplified in the evening's highpoint, "Satisfy," a track from Ndegeocello's last album, Bitter, that was transformed into a 15-minute stylistic odyssey. After a soulful rendition of the melancholy, adult-rock guitar chords and yearning lyrics of the original recording, the band soon shifted gears and guitarist Allen Cato took over for an extended solo that finally wound up in a euphoric rendition of the chorus from Jimi Hendrix's "Power of Soul." A brief ambient interlude later, keyboardist Federico Gonzalez Peña chimed in with a bubbling synth attack reminiscent of the Who's "Baba O'Riley," drummer Oliver Gene Lake launched into a perfect imitation of drum 'n' bass breakbeats, percussionist Danny Sadownick added bongo rhythms, and the couple hundred people crammed inside the intimate venue were out of their seats, away from the bar and screaming.
It didn't take epics like that for Ndegeocello to elicit a response, however. The singer's female fans are nothing if not adoring: one repeatedly shouted a marriage proposal and jumped on stage to distribute water to the band, while another spent half the night rapt at Ndegeocello's feet, at one point leaving a necklace draped over a keyboard for the singer.
With that kind of devoted following, Cookie seems assured of a positive response. The new tunes sounded like a move away from the song-oriented, subdued Bitter and back to the badass basslines and jazz-funk orchestration of earlier material, while the lyrics, if anything, were Ndegeocello's most politically-conscious yet. On "Dead Nigga Blvd.," she spoke of the need for the black community to examine its problems internally, rather than blaming "the system"; the theme was continued on "Priorities 1-6," a critique of hip-hop's obsession with money, drugs and underworld fantasies.
There was still time for the personal—and the pleasurable—however. One unnamed tune dealt with a relationship with a woman uncertain about her sexuality, while "Better By the Pound" hearkened back to the glory days of Funkadelic and looked towards "mother Earth," rather than drugs, as a form of solace. The new music blended smoothly with older material throughout the night—but with a band as elastic as this one, it could all sound completely different on the album.
FREE LANCE STAR
Katherine Shapleigh
November 1, 2001
There was no warm-up act for Meshell Ndegeocello at Saturday night's sold-out Birchmere—and no need for one. Her music heated up the room as the show began, and her controversial politics kept it toasty as it drew to a close.
The diminutive Ndegeocello, who had worn an Afro in the past, came out with her head shaved, shared a few giggles with her band, the Conscientious Objectors, and then, with no time wasted on small talk or hellos, let loose her pin-you-to-your-chair voice.
Ndegeocello cut her musical teeth on the Washington nightclub circuit, and the hometown audience welcomed her with open arms.
She spent childhood years in Virginia in the 1970s, back when she was known as Michelle Johnson. As a teen, she adopted her new name—Ndegeocello, Swahili for "free as a bird."
She was the first female artist signed by Maverick Records, and her fourth album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, is due out February 12.
She stuck with vocals at first on Saturday, but couldn't help herself from playing a fierce air guitar.
By the third song, the air guitar had been replaced by the real deal—the bass she has won widespread acclaim for mastering.
One song became the next, with little or no pauses to allow the audience's appreciation to soak in. The night was more of a basement groove session, with a band jamming for the sheer joy of it all.
Ndegeocello mingled guitar and vocals for the first time on "Satisfy," a song from 1999's Bitter.
Her voice was honey, the song haunting.
"Only you satisfy me, only you satisfy me/ I hold out my hand and touch heaven, tear out my grieving heart/ But you come and fill it with love."
Her keyboard player took it uptempo midsong, and went into a long, manic solo that soon grew tiresome and irritating.
Then the mood turned sassy, with a story and song about a lesbian relationship—complete with raw language and sexual details that could never make the airwaves.
Next was "Faithful," another incredible, soulful offering from the Bitter CD:
"No one is faithful/ I am weak/ I go astray/ Forgive me for my ways."
I was hooked. I couldn't wait to see what was next.
But what came next wasn't pretty.
Ndegeocello expressed frustration with the post-September 11 patriotic fervor that's swept the country.
"People die every day," she reminded the audience in half-song, over and over between dialogue. She spoke of people in Florida, people in New York—Americans—who die every day as a result of problems at which the country does not throw dollars.
She spoke of President Bush, of how he has said the Taliban "were not elected." But "he wasn't either," she yelled to cheers from the crowd.
She spoke of irritation with the "We're open for business" motto that's been heard so often across the country.
She complained about the flood of bumper stickers and the fervent flag-waving.
And finally, she expressed distaste for the "freedom" America prides itself on, saying, "I didn't ask to be here."
Many in the crowd jumped to their feet in a standing ovation.
Sitting there, with Americans towering all around me, clapping, the joy in the music dissipated.
Just a few miles up the road, in the darkness of that same cold night sky, was the gaping hole in the Pentagon.
There is still a gaping hole in a great many American hearts.
It's too bad that our hard-earned freedoms—freedoms Americans of all backgrounds and colors have died for over the years—were so little appreciated Saturday night.
And it's too bad that a woman blessed with such a magnificent voice and wizardry on the bass, who is free to earn a nice living and express her opinions, couldn't find it in her heart to fill the Washington air with a tribute to those who died—and are dying—to protect her freedom.
VIBe
Deborah Gregory
October 2001
The club is packed and the stage obscenely small for Meshell Ndegeocello and her seven-piece band. But the androgynous singer/bassist is known to love cozy, intimate settings like this Greenwich Village spot. Chuckling in her trademark husky voice, she asks the audience if they're ready for her, or if they're "one of those bourgeois New York crowds who want to do a lot of dancing." They roar their support, and she starts serving up jams off her menu.
Over the course of a 12-song, two-plus-hours performance, the underground icon—who carved a niche for herself eight years ago with her debut album, Plantation Lullabies, unleashes a bass-heavy set overflowing with funk, rock, jazz, dance, and even calypso. Between songs, she keeps the crowd oohing and laughing with her blunt banter about the spirtuality of her music ("I don't mean to mellow you out, but I don't give a fuck, because I like to have church as much as I can") and her sexual politics ("I love pussy. Ain't y'all glad I'm not like those other artists frontin' and singing about men you know I don't date?").
The surprise of her set? Seven new master-jammy songs, which fans who've been waiting for some new Meshell since '99's Bitter are sure to dig. Each is an ultratasty ode to black life—especially "Pocketbook," with it's catchy hook "That's my song, right there," and the show's closer, "Dead Nigga Blvd." She rocks the latter acoustic-style, continuing to sidestep comparisons to other female vocalists who shimmy their wares. But she does throw a little praise their way: "That Beyoncé sure ain't too bootylicious for me!" she jokes before closing, suggesting that her disillusioned and bitter days are behind her—at least for one electrifying evening.
Ndegeocello, a bassist, let David Dyson provide the regular groove and picked up her own instrument just for emphasis. While the idea of two bass guitars could be frightening, on this occasion the bottom only earned more depth.
ROLLING STONE
Charles Bermant
September 4, 2001
Bumbershoot, the municipal arts festival that takes over Seattle Center every Labor Day weekend, seems to be as much fun for the artists as the audience. "There is a great Seattle vibe," said Meshell Ndegeocello. "People are more open, and this is a great meeting place — maybe because of the natural beauty of the Northwest."
Ndegeocello's set was gritty and urban, but her empowered-woman message echoed Loretta Lynn's. Her set was brisk and to the point, skipping her keynote "Make Me Wanna Holler" in favor of some new selections, including the rap/sung "Dead Nigga Blvd."
The new song is from the upcoming album, Tyrone Cookie Goldberg, which she described as "Master P meets Bitches Brew."
Ndegeocello, a bassist, let David Dyson provide the regular groove and picked up her own instrument just for emphasis. While the idea of two bass guitars could be frightening, on this occasion the bottom only earned more depth.
SEATTLE GAY STANDARD
T. Morgan
September 3, 2001
There is no denying that seeing Meshell Ndegeocello live defies all sense of logic and reason. Her presence looks small against the huge backdrop of lights and equipment, but with her soul, a microphone and a guitar, the effect is almost overpowering.
And it's not just the soulful, jive and vibe of her creations echoing throughout the stadium that got this packed crowd swaying and grooving. It is the forever changing and inspiring message of Ndegeocello.
Each album she creates is innovative and unpredictable, and this day in the sun, in the open air, was no exception. Surrounded by a truly diverse, young crowd, Ndegeocello sat on a stool with no instrument and declared a truce on our troubles.
With a slow beat in the background, she took the microphone in hand and spoke to us about "the universal emotion" of "somebody doesn't love you back." She was clearly in her vibe up there and we were definitely taking off for our honeymoon.
The dykes were out in their rolled-up shirtsleeves, tighty whities and bandannas, smiling into the sun as she declared, "Now there's nothing wrong with a little funk for your day."
Set to release her new album in February 2002, tentatively titled Tyrone 'Cookie' Goldberg, Seattle was the first show featuring some of the new work.
"We're working out the kinks," she announced, and the crowd cheered louder. The spirit of Bumbershoot allows for so much experimentation and the participants as well as the ticket holders are primed to receive the spirit of creation, it seems.
Another beauty of the Bumbershoot show is the lack of fireworks and glam all around. Ndegeocello understands this very well as a musician who comes to the stage to not only play for her fans but to feel the vibe and create in the process.
She yelled out into the crowd, "Now, this ain't no Britney Spears shit—there are no costume changes." We appreciated this immensely and applauded even louder.
As the show progressed Ndegeocello talked more and more about the community of those in attendance. "Feel the spirit," she said, "make this place your church, your mosque, your synagogue, whatever and put your hands together."
The piece that followed declared "I feel alright!" and we put our hands together to celebrate being. "Gimme some church."
The Ndegeocello performance amazed with improvisation and innovation and the players, including guitar, keyboard, and drums, all connected by more than just obligation.
The groove and the vibe are not just words in the presence of her great soul. You can really see how she leads her comrades down some path that, yes, comes out of her busy mind, but also is grounded in her soul. The music speaks volumes for the journey she is on in that moment.
The show ended after only an hour with Meshell inviting the crowd to check out the new album in February, "or you could continue with the absurdity of TV." As always, it is left up to us what to explore and, thanks to Ndegeocello, the inspiratoin is revamped to continue. Thank you!
SEATTLE POST INTELLIGENCER
Gene Stout
September 3, 2001
Lamenting the segregation of popular music into "the white bin" and "the black bin" at record stores, singer and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello blurred the lines separating funk, r&b, jazz and hip-hop in her brief but powerful performance Saturday afternoon.
"All my records are very, very different," she told a mellow crowd at Memorial Stadium. "I don't fit mainstream culture. My music is for everybody."
Wearing a hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans and rugged, thick-soled boots, Ndegeocello looked as though she were prepared for a day of hard labor. She was backed by her talented four-piece band.
Ndegeocello performed music from Bitter, Plantation Lullabies and a new album due next February. From the upcoming album, she sang a provocative song about "gaining the world and losing your soul."
JAZZ TIMES
Philip Booth
May 5, 2001
Superfly's annual Superjam offered another eclectic, one-of-a-kind mix at the historic Saenger Theater, with singer-bassist Meshell Ndegeocello joined by saxophonist Joshua Redman, downtown New York guitarist Marc Ribot, and keyboardist John Medeski of Medeski Martin and Wood. Dave Matthews Band drummer Carter Beauford, he of the spaceship-sized trap kit, was a bit out of place, making grand gestures where subtlety was called for, and generally proving too inflexible for the good of the jams. Give the group an A for effort (and the sound man a D for failing to fix the overloaded, distorted bass-guitar sound), but few creative sparks were ignited, with the exception of a funk riff led by Redman. Maybe next time.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Natalie Nichols
February 13, 2001
Meshell Ndegeocello wanted the stage lights turned down at the Conga Room on Sunday. "I'd much rather you feel me and hear me than see me," she told the capacity crowd at the first of her two sets. "Then I can see you, too."
This come-closer-so-I-can-get-in-your-face thing is a hallmark of Ndegeocello's work. Her three albums have offered intimate, pointed, sometimes controversial ruminations on African American social and political issues, religion, sexuality and human nature. Amid selections from previous works, a handful of new songs from an in-progress album continued these themes.
Despite the raw sensuality expressed in her "romantic" songs, the openly bisexual artist viewed love as just another human tragedy—sometimes with bitter humor, as when describing a female lover who only wanted her for sex and took a boyfriend because she couldn't handle being considered gay.
Her disgust and sorrow over the way self-deception and shallowness mess things up extended to her opinions on racial issues. While sympathetic about such tragedies as how African Americans' great leaders tend to get shot dead, she decried the passivity of waiting around for another leader to come. She also criticized the romanticizing of Africa and hatred of whites, and insisted blacks must actively work to "redefine what it means to be free."
On the first of her two nights at the Conga Room, the singer-bassist and her quintet, the Conscientious Objectors, delivered these messages in sprawling, watery grooves. Hints of Hendrix and Gil Scott-Heron bubbled in her trademark soul fusion, blending the improvisatory approach of jazz with R&B, hip-hop and rock.
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EAR POLLUTION
Hope Lopez
September 2000
On the Main Stage Friday night was Meshell Ndegeocello. One of my favorite musicians today, Ndegeocello despite a few sound issues (her keyboard was either too loud or too soft) remained a good sport and, in the spirit of WOMAD, continued to play. Another musician with a lot of heart and integrity, Ndegeocello made some new fans who weren't familiar with her work. How can you not be impressed with an artist who feels the music and locks in with her players? From the subtle beauty of the softer instrumentals to the funkier jams, Ndegeocello seamlessly moves from one style to another, from bass to keys. Without pause, she can easily switch gears, tug at your heart with "Faithful" and then make you want to jump out of your skin as she breaks into a heavy funk of "Deuteronomy: Niggerman."
There has been a lot of growth thematically in Ndegeocello's music over the span of three major releases. Her anger towards colonization of minds has evolved into a universal awareness of global culturalism. Her views haven't watered down; instead, she speaks of empowerment and instead of creating racial divisions, builds a conduit of understanding to humanity as a whole. In response to her record label wanting her sound to be "more black," she introduced the crowd tonight to a new song, "Dead Nigga Blvd." Ndegeocello's band with each spontaneous jam seemed to lock in with her playing, creating musical satori. Ndegeocello is a true musician's musician with a creative vision and the soul of a poet.
SEATTLE TIMES
Misha Berson
July 30, 2000
"Cute can only get you so far," stated the individualistic American singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello, at a public question-and-answer session. "I don't define my beauty by (the industry's) standards. I really believe music is a spiritual process."
True to her word, the earnest, androgynous Ndegeocello dressed plainly in black pants and a loose blue shirt for her WOMAD gig in the open-air Mainstage arena. Alternating on electric bass and keyboard, she relied on extended jams with her jazz-funk fusion band, her smoky vocals, and such sensitive original tunes as "Grace," from her latest album Bitter, to connect with thronging fans: "Your love is my only saving grace/ You caress my heart/ Kiss my face..."
SEATTLE TIMES
Patrick MacDonald
July 29, 2000
Meshell Ndegeocello, the talented, bracing young American R&B singer, drew a large crowd to the main stage, although her raw, sexy show would have been better suited to late night than sundown, when a lot of kids were still present.
Ndegeocello noted that African music, which makes up most of the festival, is a lot different than African-American music. "We're here to bring you the 3/4 beat," she said, fronting her band on electric keyboards.
MANCHESTER GUARDIAN
Mel Steel
July 15, 2000
Meshell Ndegeocello isn't interested in formalities, introductions, or playing up to anyone's expectations. She walks on stage at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire like someone who would rather be anywhere else, and walks off it more than two hours later like a diva in absolute possession of herself, her band and her audience. "If you don't feel like fucking after hearing my music then I've done something wrong," she says. She does nothing wrong.
It's four years since Ndegeocello last performed in the UK, and even longer since the seat-wetting bass snaps and heavy vocal come-ons of her debut album, Plantation Lullabies, ensured her reputation as a heavyweight musician. The multi-layered weave of jazz, funk, rock and hip-hop laid down an irresistible backing for her radical political and sexual lyrics, and her second album, Peace
Beyond Passion, got equally rave reviews.
Bitter, the new album, is a more introspective and acoustic affair, but live it's as mean and spinetingling as anything she's done. The set she plays is a mix of old and new, moving effortlessly from the restrained keyboards and plaintive lyrics of "Outside Your Door" to the heavy bass and heavier lyrics of "Deuteronomy: Niggerman." "Faithful" and "Loyalty" sees Ndegeocello sitting back on
the bass while Allen Cato's carries the groove on guitar. Elsewhere she gives up the bass entirely to young and gifted Londoner Anthony Tidd.
But two new tracks from her forthcoming album steal the show. The first, "Barry Farms," about her affair with a 17-year-old girl, is about as hot as is probably legal. The second, "Dead Nigga Blvd." is a searing, bass-driven polemic on the Yankee dollar and the state of the American black psyche.
There are three things you need, she says, for the perfect seduction: a fat, low-slung bass groove; some prettifyin' atmosphere; and some sweet talk. We were wickedly, deliciously seduced.
MONTREAL GAZETTE
T'cha Dunlevy
July 8, 2000
Meshell Ndegeocello seduced an appreciative crowd at Theatre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts on June 29. "Y'all don't have to be so gentrified," she said, taunting the seated audience. Though people never made it to their feet, it wasn't for lack of trying. Ndegeocello dropped a lengthy, all-out funk jam to end her soulful set.
VILLAGE VOICE
Michelle Mercer
June 27, 2000
The audience gratification award has to go to Meshell Ndegeocello for her compensatory witching-hour set. Her earlier Battery Park show had been canceled when a windstorm struck (an efficient enough clearing of the park followed until some excitable stringer yelled, "Run for your lives!" At which point a mob scene ensued).
WASHINGTON POST
Teresa Wiltz
May 13, 2000
Yes, there is such a thing as going home again, returning to the place from whence you came. But you can't really go back to the way it was, so you take the past and hug it real tight and wrap it around this newly reconstituted musical you. And then you throw in a little hint—just a tease, really—of that rollicking go-go beat, just to let the folks know that you ain't, like, forgot about D.C.
It helps if you do this as the musical maelstrom of a poet-bassist-keyboardist-singer otherwise known as Meshell Ndegeocello, and you're cresting the wave of the neo-soul renaissance, selling out the 9:30 Club on a school night, packing 'em to the rafters with a contingent of all-girl devotees screaming your name.
So what if you're often too raw for radio? Now you get to thumb your nose at the Howard music profs who flunked you and say, "Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah."
Musically, of course.
In concerts past, she dazzled with wring-out-the-sweat funk fests of hits such as "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" and "Who Is He and What Is He to You," pounding the bass with an unrestrained ferocity. But this time around, Ndegeocello seduced with soothing pillow talk, sly asides and slow-mo songs of longing and loss, supple grooves in which the beat remained content to hang out in the background, slowly insinuating itself into the backbone.
"I know y'all want to hear 'Dred Loc' and 'Boyfriend,'" she said, "but I wrote that when I was 17. That's not me."
Indeed, the bald dome of the androgynous Ndegeocello is gone, replaced with a burgeoning 'fro and pink aviator glasses.
She spoke/sang in a smoked alto that invited images of a Gen-X Nina Simone; her songs were spare yet lush, pulsing with the wail of her bass and shimmering with the take-'em-to-church keyboards of Federico Gonzalez Peña. Songs that lived up to the name of her third CD, Bitter, with lyrics that evoked a wary world where hearts are shattered and jaded romantics cry out while making love, "Just don't betray me/ Come be with me/ Soothe my broken heart/ Show me loyalty..."
It was concert as moody meditation. She meandered between keyboards and bass, beginning with a riff on a familiar song such as "Deuteronomy: Niggerman," and then running off on an extended tangent, turning a funky tune into bluesy lament. But no one minded taking the scenic route. To go to an Ndegeocello concert is to witness a composition in progress.
And throughout the nearly two-hour set, Ndegeocello rapped to the audience like the old friends that they were, engaging in a running commentary on then and now. Back in the day, she said, she was a lonely girl coming to terms with being bisexual, "giving it to every Tom, Dick, Harry, Jane and Sue, so... I could feel like I was really here."
She couldn't resist the soapbox, taking on everything from the Elian Gonzalez drama to the fine art of seducing a lover to rejecting music industry labels: "It's all about being an alternative Negro."
And then, like the elusive lovers Ndegeocello so movingly complains about, she slid offstage, leaving the audience yearning.
ATLANTA JOURNAL & CONSTITUTION
Sonia Murray
May 7, 2000
Though she was sometimes seemingly oblivious that she was at an outdoor festival, the exceptional R&B singer-songwriter-musician still gave her crowd of longtime fans (and those just stumbling through) a worthwhile show. Her band's soulful and genre-sprawling improvisations made up for the occasional lulls due to poor and slow song selection. And you have to factor in as a plus the surely unintentional humor when a signer had to interpret her profanities.
THE MUSIC BOX
John Metzger
February 2000
Opening for Sting on December 3, 1999 at the Chicago Theatre, Meshell Ndegeocello began the evening with a short, but strong set of material that effortlessly crossed the boundaries from smooth jazz-pop to brawny funk to slinky rhythm & blues. Better still, she and her talented band weren't afraid to explore the musical periphery of her songs, allowing the grooves to take root and blossom into exquisite jam sessions.
EAR POLLUTION
Hope Lopez
January 2000
"Are you aware of all the beauty you have here?" the bespectacled and understated Meshell Ndegeocello addressed the crowd tonight at the Showbox in the wake of the WTO. She reported her afternoon trip downtown where she witnessed the most beautiful thing of the various protests going on: religious demonstrations and the cops not overreacting as they did the week before. Though she's very much in tune with demonstrating peace and love, Ndegeocello still holds her own when it comes to her racial politics and her beliefs. That balance she maintains is what's refreshing about this type of artist. It's not about the Benjamins and the designer labels; it's about the music, a universal understanding for humanity. Starting the set off with a couple of songs from her current release, Bitter, "Faithful" had the crowd sing along to the languorous and moody song. "Outside Your Door" was a surprise treat for those wanting to hear material off her debut Plantation Lullabies. Although she didn't do "Soul on Ice," she funked up the mellowness with "I'm Diggin' You (Like an Old Soul Record)" where the chorus starts off as "back in the day" and which she improvised various endings such as "when being a thug was a bad thing'" to "black folks read." Obviously a nod against the MTV babies. A nice touch was the jazzy swing version of "Shootin' Up and Gettin' High" which was as trenchant as something from the revolutionary Gil Scott-Heron.
"I'm epileptic and those flashes trip me out though I think it's nice you want to take my pictures," Meshell Ndegeocello said to the audience at The Showbox, several songs after the emcee announced that no flashes were to be used during the musician's performance tonight. Still, there had to be the ones who continued to shoot away which drove the diminutive Ndegeocello to turn her back to the crowd as she continued to sing. Eventually the flashes did cease and the show continued on beautifully with "Deuteronomy: Niggerman," from Peace Beyond Passion. Along with her excellent band, her bass playing was supremely tight and funkified. There's so much to be said about Ndegeocello. But to be succinct, her performance was sublime and had the crowd wanting more.
SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
Jane Ganahl
December 16, 1999
Rarely has the search for spiritual fulfillment and love been accompanied by such a funky groove. But that is the allure of Meshell Ndegeocello, the soulful singer/songwriter and bass player whose music is an ongoing exploration of her higher self.
Her sold-out Tuesday night show at Slim's was far from a pedantic affair; mixed in with the lofty verbiage was joy and humor.
"I'm looking back in the day when Prince was Prince," she scatted during one instrumental passage, "I'm looking back in the day when people weren't too cool to dance..."
That day had returned to Slim's, because the eclectic audience (black, white, Asian, young, old, gay, straight) was set in groove mode, and moved hyperkinetically throughout her 90-minute set. This was due in equal parts to the 30-year-old Ndegeocello's charismatic presence—her tiny, powerful frame topped off with a knit cap obscuring her famous shaved head—and her band, a remarkable collection of pros.
Together they wove an aural tapestry of funk, from sexy-smooth Marvin Gaye grinds to percolating conga-driven Latin rhythms, with Ndegeocello's remarkable, husky alto hop-scotching from soft hip-hop to outr jazz crooning.
Ndegeocello first made a splash with her 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies, which was nominated for three Grammies, and with her duet with John Mellencamp on Van Morrison's 1994 "Wild Night." But that was just a hint of what she can do—and it's unclear why she isn't playing larger venues.
The show at Slim's was orchestrated and conducted by Ndegeocello as if with an invisible baton, and with a spiritual bent even on the most erotic tunes.
"Such pretty hair/ may I kiss you/may I kiss you there," she sang softly from the song "Beautiful," one of the best on her splendid, understated new album, Bitter, while the band spun a cocoon of ethereal sonics around her.
Ndegeocello is one of a new crop of female singers—an elite group that includes Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu—who have rediscovered the values of Roberta Flack and Joan Armatrading: The blending of soul and pop to deliver a gut-punching message.
"My view of self was that of a divine ho/ Like the ones portrayed on the white man-colonized minded rap shows," she raged in "Deuteronomy: Niggerman." An d in "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart" (both from 1996's Peace Beyond Passion), she sang: "For my time on earth I pay dearly for the past/Confusion embraces my heart/for to know self is to forgive self/my sojourn of truth."
And believe it or not, you can dance to it.
Ndegeocello's older material lent itself better to expanded grooving than her new stuff, which is far more introspective. At times her band—two percussionists, two guitarists, a keyboardist and an occasional bassist—was allowed to jam a little too long, and one wished for more of Ndegeocello's remarkable singing. And occasionally—not often enough—she abandoned her low-key approach and strutted around the stage with her bass, thumping it with the abandon of a Les Claypool or a Sting, with whom she has recently toured.
It's unclear why Ndegeocello, whose material stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Lauryn Hill's, hasn't made as big a splash as the former Fugees singer. But with more shows like this one, that is certain to change.
OREGONIAN
Marty Hughley
December 11, 1999
Which of the following phrases might best describe Meshell Ndegeocello, who played to a packed house Thursday night at the Aladdin Theater?
1. Tortured romantic soul diva.
2. Attitude-fueled funkateer.
3. Sensitive, confessional pop singer-songwriter.
4. Fiery jazz-rock fusioneer.
5. Brooding poet.
6. Counselor specializing in mind/body therapy as route to self-actualization.
Try all of the above.
In more than two hours of technically accomplished, passionately performed music, Ndegeocello demonstrated the impressive talent and sensibilities that have made her one of the '90s' most challenging and appealing artists.
The acclaimed singer-bassist opened the show seated, speaking in a half-whisper, her distinctively dusky alto full of gravity and intimation. Her recitation was partly a statement of purpose, concluding with the promise of "cultivating positive vibes." She and her imposingly skilled six-piece backing band did that right away, kicking into "I'm Digging You (Like an Old Soul Record)," a chunk of funky tribute to the '70s, "when everyone was black and conscious."
She followed that dance-floor favorite with the aptly named "Grace," a gorgeous ballad that suggests Roberta Flack merged with Al Green. Ndegeocello continued to sculpt the show's mood with such contrasts of light and dark, steamy grooves alternating with slow-burn balladry, interspersed with that warmly commanding speaking voice. She offered commentary on subjects ranging from the beauty of the Northwest to the importance of social activism, from the double-standards that hamper blacks in the music industry to the virtues of kissing and slow-dancing.
Fans dancing enthusiastically in front of the stage added to the evening's spirit, but she thanked them for their attentiveness during the slower poetic musings and all the discursive, jazzy solos. Keyboardist Federico Gonzales Peña was the most interesting of improvisers, but Ndegeocello's driving and expressive bass work (she shared bass duties with Fima Ephron) was also an instrumental highlight.
And by the end of the evening, the most fitting descriptive phrase was simply, "Wow."
ST. LOUIS POST DISPATCH
Kevin C. Johnson
December 7, 1999
St. Louis was treated to high-profile touring acts featuring Ricky Martin, the Indigo Girls and Meat Loaf last week. Then, in the perfecting end to a divinely diverse week, soul singer Meshell Ndegeocello wowed a packed and sweltering Mississippi Nights crowd Saturday evening.
It's a testament to the smoky singer's vast talents, as well as to St. Louis, that she could bring her non-mainstream sounds and image to town and get the kind of reception she did—especially since her CDs Plantation Lullabies and Peace Beyond Passion aren't exactly household items and her new relationships CD, Bitter, carries a low profile.
Ndegeocello, known to some as the woman who performed with John Mellencamp on "Wild Night," gave St. Louis a much-needed reminder of what true soul music is all about and that it has nothing to do with what's heard regularly on the radio, where she's truly an odd-woman-out. The top of her powerful 90-minute show focused exclusively on Bitter songs, such as "Satisfy," "Grace" and "Faithful," which was fine since they all represent songs that are high points on a CD that's a high point itself. "Wasted Time" also showed up in the early segment, complete with the abrupt, midlyric ending heard on the CD that had some thinking the CD was defective (the sudden ending reflects the instant realization that it's time to move on).
She also conjured up older songs "The Way," "Deuteronomy: Niggerman" and "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart" to the crowd's obvious joy.
What set it all off, what took it to the next level, was the ability of Ndegeocello and her band to show that what they know about music has nothing to do with this particular decade. Instead, this fired-up crew, often centered by prime moments of Ndegeocello thumping away on bass, recalled some of the great funk acts of the '70s in its execution and style. While songs often started out sounding like the recorded versions, they'd eventually veer off into jam land. Songs took on surprising shapes, sizes and sounds, with jazz and rock figuring into the mix.
Though the music didn't feel especially spontaneous as jams are supposed to be, it was always moving, especially when she'd wander way off and come right back to where she started.
If sultry ballad "Outside Your Door" sounded familiar, it was because the musical bed Ndegeocello laid down for that track was slept in by Brian McKnight, who used the music, though not the lyrics, for his huge hit "Anytime" (without crediting Ndegeocello). Ndegeocello was reportedly at odds with McKnight over this, but that didn't stop her from acknowledging this by using McKnight's lyrics in her own song in past performances. But she didn't go there this time. Too bad. It would have been a moment to savor.
NEW YORK TIMES
Jon Pareles
November 22, 1999
Click here to read the full review.
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
Melissa Ruggieri
November 11, 1999
Opening for Sting, Meshell Ndegeocello didn't have as enjoyable an evening. Midway through a brief 30-minute appearance that included "Wasted Time" and "Satisfy," from her Bitter offering, the singer/bassist tossed her microphone down in apparent anger and walked offstage. A muddy mix was the likely culprit.
CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
Tonya Jameson
November 10, 1999
Opening for Sting before a sold-out crowd of 2,600 at Ovens Auditorium, Meshell Ndegeocello started out stiff. It took her several songs to warm up. Dressed in blue jeans, an undershirt tank top and a knit hat, Ndegeocello looked cold.
Ndegeocello is also known for bucking musical trends. Since cutter her teeth in Washington D.C.'s go-go scene, the 30-year-old singer and musician has been challenging the industry with her poignant songs about sexism, poverty, love, homosexuality and other themes.
Ndegeocello, who has released three CDs, performed only songs from her latest one, Bitter, during her 40-minute set Tuesday.
During the first half of the show, she and her band seemed out of sync as they plodded through the disc's melancholy tracks.
But Ndegeocello's original instrumental compositions "Adam" and "Eve" got their juices flowing. Ndegeocello's energetic dreadlocked guitarist pumped up the six-piece band.
And Ndegeocello finally hit her stride, playing her bass guitar as if it was an extension of her essence.
Every song after that flowed like a jam session and Ndegeocello showed why she is considered one of the best bassists in the country.
FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
Mark Lowry
November 6, 1999
"There's no point in playing live if you just sound like your albums," Meshell Ndegeocello has said. Ne'er was a truer statement spoken, and Ndegeocello more than kept her promise Thursday night at Deep Ellum Live.
Her latest album, Bitter, is softer and more jazzy than her previous, hip-hop-meets-old-school soul outings. Although four sedate tracks from the new effort opened the concert, it didn't take long for the show to reach jam-band heights.
Her main set lasted an hour and a half, but she sang only nine songs, including old favorites "Outside Your Door" and "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart." Each tune ended with a rousing extended jam from her accomplished band: Federico Gonzales Peña on keyboards, Alfredo Mojica on bongos and percussion, Gene Lake on drums, and guitarists Allen Cato and Bryant McNeil.
Don't forget the woman herself—Ndegeocello plays a mean bass.
Cato handled most of the guitar work and sang in the middle of one tune, but it was McNeil who received the most attention from the audience. He was incredibly charismatic and wore a floor-length black leather shirt, "like they do in Africa," Ndegeocello said. When McNeil wasn't wielding his guitar, he shook his body as fiercely as he jostled the tambourine.
The song that got the audience on its feet—Deep Ellum Live had put chairs on the floor, a move Ndegeocello didn't like—was "I'm Diggin' You (Like an Old Soul Record)," from her first album, Plantation Lullabies.
She took a moment to reminisce, remembering the respectfully dressed Aretha Franklin and the time that "Mariah Carey thought she was white." Later, she took a jab at overrated white-boy metal rappers Limp Bizkit: "If a black group acted like that on stage, they would be arrested."
Her voice was shipshape, and the audience was in the right mood.
Ndegeocello is a terrific performer on many levels, but the fact that she doesn't produce carbon copies of her album tracks is the reason to see her—or anyone—live.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Thor Christensen
November 6, 1999
Meshell Ndegeocello issued the musical version of a mission statement in 1993 when she recorded "I'm Digging You (Like an Old Soul Record)." Yet the old-school sound that dominated her show Thursday night at Deep Ellum Live wasn't classic R&B at all.
Load up the bong, and get your fingers ready for some air guitar: Soul sister Meshell has discovered progressive rock.
To be accurate, it was the singer's bandmates who did most of the prog-rock playing. Guitarist Allen Cato, a Dallas native, cranked out a series of long, prickly solos straight out of a mid-'70s Pink Floyd tour. And with keyboardist Federico Gonzalez Peña playing rubbery solos on his Moog synth, the concert came off like a re-creation of Jeff Beck With the Jan Hammer Group Live.
Not that there's anything wrong, per se, with prog-rock nostalgia. Mr. Cato's daring solos reminded you what jazz-rock was supposed to sound like before it got watered down into wallpaper "fusion."
But missing amid all this prog-rock jamming was a clear sense of who Ms. Ndegeocello is. True, she's a woman of many hats—singer, bassist, gender bender, genre buster—but none of those really shone through during the show.
What did connect were the slow, melancholy songs that make up her latest album, Bitter. "Faithful" and "Loyalty" were poignant kiss-offs to ex-lovers who obviously didn't know the meaning of those words, while "Satisfy" picked up the tempo as Ms. Ndegeocello and Mr. Cato
locked their guitars into a sharp, minimalist rhythm. With her low- key stage presence and her low, narrow voice, Ms. Ndegeocello let her backing musicians do most of the work. But she did liven up near the end of the show as she launched into a series of trenchant observations about the sorry state of jazz, the overabundance of sampling and the politics of race in music.
"I remember when Mariah Carey thought she was white," she blurted out at one point, as her band churned out a slow groove behind her.
Later, she intoned over and over, "What the fuck is a Limp Bizkit?" before finally concluding, "If a black rapper acted like that, they'd throw 'em in jail."
Her point was debatable, but at last, her personality was finally coming into focus.
POSTHOC SAN FRANCISCO
Idan Amoy
August 26, 1999
* * * *
Meshell Ndegeocello is a fuckin' genius.
Music enthusiasts seeking an unbiased view of Meshell's Thursday night concert at the Justice League should read the SF Weekly or something. I am a fan. Define genius the skeptics say. A genius digs his or her own music and looks to the audience for that mutual appreciation that he or she feels, not for validation. After a less-than-impressive set by the Brown Fellinis, Meshell and her band took the stage in what everyone knew was a small Maverick-sponsored event to hype the new album. Spinner.com's been promoting the album with an all-Meshell channel, so I've been listening in for the past few weeks or so.
The new album Bitter, is excellent. It marks a departure from her bass-thumping, revolutionary past. But she embarks on this new path with melodic fervor and never looks back. With it's one-word song titles, Bitter takes on the struggles of self-examination and the pain of relationships gone awry with brutal honesty. It runs the gamut from "Loyalty" to "Grace" (the album's first single), and is peppered in between, with gems like "Beautiful," "Faithful," and the haunting title track.
The setting was The Justice League, an intimate and ventilation-less venue where sweaty bodies clamored by the second to get closer to the stage. Meshell introduced the new songs and even treated the crowd to some of the oldies such as "Soul On Ice" and "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart."
Watching Meshell is poetry in motion, for it is apparent that she is at one with her instrument. It's honestly quite difficult to determine where the bass guitar ends and she begins. Her figure is not imposing at all. As a matter of fact, she is small in stature, but the way she handles the bass is beautiful to watch. Her movements on stage are a hybrid of Anita Baker and Joe Cocker without the flailing arms. She keeps her eyes closed throughout most of the show, vibing on her own music and dealing with her own shit. Her band is at it's cohesive best when they simply jam. No 3:25 radio edits here. Songs went on for 10, even 15 minutes.
Mad props go out the guitarist Allen Cato who seems to have a spiritual connection with each string of his guitar and the keyboardist whose talents unite the band into a solid unit. Their ability to incorporate a variety of new sounds and accompany Meshell on her musical journey makes seeing the band live worthwhile.
While Bitter contains at least 2 radio singles, I doubt that it'll be the crossover album of the year. Something tells me that this won't bother Meshell much though. Watching her perform warms the heart.
Ever hear that phrase "You never miss the water 'til the well runs dry"? The pop music well is dry but Meshell reminds us what it's been missing: Honesty.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Natalie Nichols
August 25, 1999
Melding the personal, the political and the spiritual into one massive, languid, rolling groove, singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello and her band moved and mesmerized the audience on Monday at the Roxy, crafting a tapestry of meditations on love and faith that bound the capacity crowd into her lush examinations of humanity.
On this first of two nights at the club, Ndegeocello's nimble, artful bass playing led her ensemble in sprawling versions of songs from her new album, Bitter, as well as earlier material. Moving from the heartbreak of the title track to the redemption of "Grace," the 90-minute set built gradually in energy and intensity as the band took the music—and the audience—higher and higher and higher.
Ndegeocello's work has always been ambitious, not just in its complex blend of soul, funk, rock and jazz but also in the way she can be confrontational and soothing on subjects as serious as racism and relationships. Her wide-ranging influences include Curtis Mayfield, Jimi Hendrix and Gil Scott-Heron, yet what listeners heard Monday was purely her own soul.
At a time when so much pop music is about fakery and posturing, it was nothing short of an amazing relief to witness a musician and writer truly keeping it real, reveling in the joys and agonies of existence and challenging her fans to do the same.
VARIETY
Troy J. Augusto
August 24, 1999
At the start of her highly anticipated show at the sold-out Roxy on Monday night, singer-bassist Meshell Ndegeocello quickly brought a hush over the bustling house with the heart-wrenching title track from her new album, Bitter. It was a dramatic and pained opening for this often-harrowing but highly enjoyable 90-minute musical meditation on life, love and pain.
Few punches were pulled as the bald Ndegeocello—who played (with enthralling flair) her bass and sang her stinging lyrics sometimes while sitting and other times while standing in front of her microphone—railed in a series of profanity-laced outbursts against ex-lovers, racists and even the publicist at her label, Madonna's Maverick Records, who twice was referred to in unflattering terms.
"Why am I compared to Janet Jackson and Lauryn Hill? Why am I not played on (LA modern rock powerhouse) KROQ?" she asked with considerable attitude during a late-set portion that incorporated "Fool of Me," another powerful song from Bitter, the singer's third and most accomplished album.
A flexible and skillful five-piece band blended a wealth of styles and added nuance and muscle to the songs, which also included the funky and dirty "Satisfy" and the hypnotic, organ-fueled "Outside Your Door," taken from Ndegeocello's acclaimed 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies.
Show, the first of two Roxy bookings that conclude a five-city U.S. mini-tour, ended on a decidedly positive and uplifting note as the singer,
after apologizing to everyone (except the publicist) at Maverick, offered the healing "Grace," an elegant affirmation that, in the end, love does conquer all.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Scott W. Helman
August 19, 1999
Meshell Ndegeocello has a history of moldbusting, having both attracted and diluted classifications as a feminist, beat poet, virtuoso bass player and Afrocentric diva. Yet what she is and always has been is an immensely talented and compelling performer, something she proved once again at a sold-out show at Martyrs' on Tuesday night.
Fresh off a brief stint with Lilith Fair, Ndegeocello's lyrical and bass-playing muscles proved toned to near perfection as she moved from tight grooves and thumping R&B jams to acoustic ballads and soft-spoken requests for loyalty, grace and healing.
Bespectacled and capped by a blue bandanna, Ndegeocello showed off her subdued side, playing several ballads from her new album Bitter, due out next week. She sought redemption in songs such as "Loyalty" and "Grace." In the song "Satisfy," she broke out of the shell a bit, doling out solo time to keyboardist Federico Gonzales Peña and guitarist Allen Cato.
An artist's newer songs are always harder to bite into live, especially when they're more introspective than danceable. But Ndegeocello's commanding presence gave even her softest, most unfamiliar melodies an edge—one that can drag an audience into her emotional terrain whether it wants to be there or not.
But the ballads were ultimately less compelling than the rhythms she's known for kicking out. Things heated up quickly when she began to wear her heart less on her sleeve and more on her jet-black bass. On "Deuteronomy: Niggerman," from 1996's Peace Beyond Passion, she dropped the glasses and came to the fore, decrying those who don't remain true. And on "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart," she laid down a tight bass line over lengthy solos.
The show's opening and closing songs were among the best. She began with "Outside Your Door" from her Grammy-nominated 1993 debut Plantation Lullabies. It asserted right from the beginning that Ndegeocello was in complete control of her sound. Guitarist Cato took over the vocals toward the end, providing a deeply soulful response to Ndegeocello's call. Coming back for an encore, the band broke into "The Way," a song that evokes a Mavis Staples moan and is one of the highlights of Peace Beyond Passion.
Because Ndegeocello is an unbelievable bass player and singer, it's easy to be greedy and want her to be both all the time. But in several instances throughout her set, she favored one or the other, leaving one enthralled but not completely satisfied. And though her musicians were by all means phenomenal, Ndegeocello sat back and let her backing band take too many extended solos, a benevolent but often self-defeating move.
LAUNCH
Karu Daniels and Darren Davis
August 13, 1999
Alternative-soul musical wunderkind Meshell Ndegeocello is set to release her long-awaited third album, Bitter, on Aug. 24. To help promote the set, she's been busy performing on a string of Lilith Fair dates before mounting her very own small-club tour, which she kicked off Thursday night at New York City's hotspot Joe's Pub.
According to Renee French, the manager of the club, the anticipation for Ndegeocello was so huge that a second show was added the afternoon before the event. Outside of the venue, throngs of fans waited in anticipation for the second show. By 11 p.m., the door policy had become "guest list only." Inside, Ndegeocello wowed the crowd, which included Madonna, the co-head of Ndegeocello's label Maverick, and Chris Rock.
In the hour-plus set, Ndegeocello showcased cuts from Bitter, including the red-hot first single, "Grace."
Ndegeocello recently told Launch that she's often frustrated by the labels thrust upon her and how people want her to act. "They want me to be Janet Jackson. They want me to be funk-goddess-queen—funky all the time, political. Then it comes into, like, 'Define what is black.' Being African-American or black, colored, Negro, whatever you want to call it, the experience is so vast. Why should I just do funk, or soul-pop? There's already a Missy Elliott."
VILLAGE VOICE
Carrie Havranek
August 11-19, 1999
It seems that slinky, bass-driven soul searching (Meshell Ndegeocello) and insidious melodies of bittersweet introspection (Aimee Mann) don't sell records. When Ndegeocello played "Grace," she quietly mentioned, "It's the first single from my new album, I hope." That is, if it can get past Maverick, which is apparently hoping for something instantly accessible. Mann, whose laconic delivery recalls Chrissie Hynde, is buying her album back from "the evil record company," which "didn't hear a single," and will release it independently.
Though Sarah McLachlan's sparkly, seraphic presence evoked high-pitched screams, I keep waiting for her to evolve as Mann and Ndegeocello have, and buy a distortion pedal. McLachlan must have been the quiet girl on the playground who never got angry and never chased the boys.
NEWSDAY
Letta Taylor
August 9, 1999
Meshell Ndegeocello, who introduced the crowd, composed mostly of young women, to a meditative funk-jazz-soul fusion too sophisticated to reach Top 40 radio.
At the same time, however, the fest underscored an Achilles' heel of Lilith in particular and female pop in general: the virtual absence of top-notch women guitar riffers. Though Crow and Hynde rocked, often while brandishing electric guitars (or, as was mostly the case with Crow, electric bass), the male guitarists in their bands provided the real instrumental firepower. Only bassist Ndegeocello made magic with her ax.
Informal collaborations were among the fest's highlights: Ndegeocello's crunchy bass heated up Crow's "There Goes the Neighborhood."
ALLENTOWN MORNING CALL
Jodi Duckett
August 7, 1999
On the Lilith Fair main stage, Meshell Ndegeocello, bandana on her head, T-shirt on her chest, bass in her arms and jazzed band to her rear, sang a set of steamy funk and blues. She joked that hardly anybody knew her, but she captivated those who listened.
BOSTON GLOBE
Joan Anderman
August 4, 1999
The Main Stage—draped in gold and purple banners depicting nude women, lutes, peacocks, and swirly doodles—was for the most part a triumph. Sarah McLachlan visited each set in long dresses and Birkenstocks like a doting aunt dropping in on her nieces. Her husband/drummer Ash Sood followed suit, contributing percussion to multiple sets throughout the day, including Meshell Ndegeocello, who can do, as she pointed out during the press conference, "whatever genre I want. I'm not the black contingent." She is, however, a truly original bassist who draped deep, gauzy vocal melodies over a sinuous, color-blind fusion of rock, jazz, funk, and R&B.
WASHINGTON POST
Richard Harrington
July 30, 1999
Meshell Ndegeocello opened the Lilith Fair program with a too-short set drawn almost exclusively from her upcoming album, Bitter. It's not due for another month, so Ndegeocello was performing material totally unfamiliar to the audience just at the
moment the skies opened up—hardly the best circumstance for such a risky venture.
The new songs seemed evenly split between the '70s-style funk fusion of "Satisfy" and "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart" and airier meditations like "Faithful" and "Loyalty." Ndegeocello is moving toward a more introspective sound, but the bassist and her five-piece band were quick to settle into supple funk vamps.
TENNESEAN
Rick De Yampert
July 27, 1999
R&B artist Meshell Ndegeocello showed the Lilith Fair crowd why no one, not even The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, can combine spirituality and eroticism as provocatively as her.
"Soiled by my lust I feel no shame," Ndegeocello sang over melancholy, sophisticated soul. "No longer forsaken when they call my name. Beautiful angels come to my bed. I am satisfied, on their flesh I have fed. No one is faithful, I am weak, I go astray, forgive me for my ways."
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Ben Wener
May 9, 1999
In the past few years, the Galaxy Concert Theatre in Santa Ana has cultivated a reputation as the ideal venue for artists who want to test new songs outside Los Angeles' often overly critical spotlight and jaded, tres-chic hipness. Beck, for one, loves the place, having used the former dinner theater first to prep for his "Odelay" tour, then to test out material for "Mutations."
Thursday night it was the challenging and often brilliant Meshell Ndegeocello's turn to warm up, affording a half-full Galaxy a sneak-peek at material that won't be available commercially until August. It was also a chance to get intimate with an unusually gifted artist searching for new direction.
What sort of direction? Where to begin? For one, there's the support, shifting away from the sprawling outfits with numerous backing singers and extra guitarists, now replaced by a lean trio of expert players adept at both soul and jazz. They provided a looser, more emotional atmosphere to Ndegeocello's older material, not unlike the darker shadings Sting explored on the more dramatic moments of "The Soul Cages."
Familiar tunes were virtually rediscovered, as in the more subtly grooving "Shoot'n Up and Gett'n High" and spacious takes on "The Way" and "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart" that allowed Ndegeocello room to rant about, well, just about anything—racial disharmony, the power of greed, the hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy, why blacks rarely supported Hendrix as strongly as whites, why she doesn't like to get jiggy wit' it, you name it.
It was mesmerizing stuff, and downright shocking to see the reserved, deeply introverted Ndegeocello so personable—laughing, chatting with the audience and cracking jokes, at one point noting that "some people think the only song I've ever done is the one with John Mellencamp," then commenting that other fans will start a conversation by saying, "I know you hate white people, but I just love your music."
She seems to be getting used to the mistaken characterization.
In fact, she's rarely seemed so confident and relaxed, the way a jazzbo with perfect chops does. What's more, you literally could watch her and the band make it up as they went along—in that when Meshell would call out, "Take it to the bridge," it wasn't some cheeky James Brown tribute. She really meant for the band, which wasn't always sure where she'd go next, to do exactly that.
The new songs? Two (obvious) words: killer cool. But a few more: deeply haunted and troubled. Gone is a great deal of Ndegeocello's preoccupation with religion and the incongruity of much of its imagery. In its place is an even more direct examination of the human condition and matters of the heart—particularly as seen through the eyes of an androgynous black woman. "I hope that a lot of these new songs show you that the black experience is extremely vast," she said, and whether she wasengulfed in romantic reverie or the anguish of acrimony, the spectrum of her raw feelings was palpable.
And "raw" is astute. Her new album (her first in three years) will be called Bitter, and the song titles tell the story: "Faithful," "Loyalty" (those two not surprisingly delivered back-to-back) and others apparently titled "Talk to Me," "Satisfy" or "Grace."
It's commanding but difficult material whose brutal honesty obviously hits Ndegeocello very hard. After that last tune, with its chorus of "your love is my saving grace"—and after having quipped that she had had a fight with her girlfriend that day—it wasn't surprising that the power of the song seemed to overcome the singer. She waved goodnight after 75 minutes and 11 songs and didn't return to the stage for an encore, reportedly bolting out the back door and away from the venue as fastas possible.
The crowd lingered and chanted for quite some time, to no avail, and some surely thought, "Prima donna. " Not a chance. This wasn't a diva move, this was a rare glimpse of the nakedness of a maverick who believes wholeheartedly in what she sings and sometimes can't take the pain. It's what makes Meshell Ndegeocello utterly fascinating, unlike anyone else in music today, whose every move is worth following.
PHILADELPHIA TRIBUNE
Shayna Peterson
July 28, 1998
Controversy and ill-constructed criticism invades this musician's element. She's too original. She's too crafty. Her band plays live. She's not feminine enough. The weave cascading her shoulders is missing. Some radio stations and video channels have used censor techniques, refusing to present her music to the public. Well, to all the indignant adversaries and fans who have failed to discover her, this sister rocks.
When you really listen to the music, not just hear it, all the undeserved negativity that surrounds her vanishes. Yeah, she may proudly sport a hairstyle donned by many men. She may make not so subtle references to her bisexuality, but listen to her musical melodies. The procession of fans who waited in line an hour before show time are prepared to help further her plight.
The Theater of the Living Arts on South Street opened its doors last Thursday night for an exhibition of the work of Meshell Ndegeocello who performed a full, unlimited, almost two hour set. Along with her five-piece band, she stormed the stage with the drumriddled cut, "I'm Diggin' You (Like An Old Soul Record)" from her premiere record Plantation Lullabies.
The stage was devoid of typical background antics like pyrotechnics, coordinated lights and halfnaked dancers. All the essentials graced the stage with their presence — the performer, the drum, the keyboard, the guitar, and the essential bass guitar.
She wore a simple pair of comfortable-looking corduroy brown pants and a tan skirt to match. Her face appeared hard, yet tender. She grinned slightly, showing appreciation for the standing room only crowd, poised to begin a musicalfilled ride with her. Nonstop for three straight songs which included "Soul on Ice," "The Way" and "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)," Ndegeocello lifted the audience on their feet.
She quickly enticed the crowd deeper into her musical hive. She abruptly stopped the music to speak, only briefly, about a rifted relationship. She attributes the love despair to her Philadelphia visit. She said, "Every time I come to Philly something has happened to me in a relationship." However, she wasn't daunted by the idea of being in Philly again.
The audience then learned that R&B groups from the `70s and `80s are not the only musicians being ripped off for lyrics, melodies and compositions. One of her most sensual tunes, "Outside Your Door," was allegedly copied, according to Ndegeocello's remarks, by Brian McKnight with his hit "Anytime."
Listen to both songs right behind each other and you may catch the drift. Even though she seemed a tad salty behind this expose, her performance of "Outside Your Door" was superb. A band member, posing as both bass player and background singer, softly coos, "I can't remember why we fell apart..." as Ndegeocello simultaneously grabbed the microphone singing, "Here I am waiting/ Just waiting/ Anticipating a chance to run into you." She wooed the audience with the intensity of her voice and the music ascending in the background.
When she grabs the bass guitar, her fingers graze the strings ever so lightly. But the sounds enumerating from the instrument and from her soul are riveting. She rarely opens her eyes as she sings or plays. She feels the music from her soul; therefore, the audience flies high off her energy. She glows musically. It's clear that the rhythms, melodies, and lyrics live within her being.
Some artists thrive off the music others create, but Ndegeocello is music. At any moment, a new beat or sound can begin life through a live instrument. Her onstage concentration and desire of perfection were evident as she performed tunes like "Step Into The Projects," "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart" and "Deuteronomy: Niggerman."
And, oh, Ndegeocello doesn't dance. She moves her body steadily to the rhythms, ferociously bopping her head up and down. The audience even gets treated to three new songs, although it wasn't clear whether these would be part of a new CD release. All three songs were different extensions of life.
Ndegeocello can do it all. She can play the blues, jazz, hip-hop, and of course of the soul. The music she plays and sings reflects the times as well as her own rough and titillating stance. Ndegeocello is poised to take over the reign of the Artist. She possesses that kind of energy, creativity, and dedication.
COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Aaron Beck
July 6, 1998
Ndegeocello started it all off. Had everyone packed up their new Amnesty International T-shirts and complimentary condoms after her performance and headed for congested I-71, they would have gotten their money's worth. The bassist and singer led her her crack band through some downright nasty funk, soul, blues and rock.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Neva Chonin
June 25, 1998
Meshell Ndegeocello kicked off the main-stage lineup with a set of acoustic blues that was liberally laced with hip-hop energy, delivered in her rich, velvety alto.
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
William Friar
June 25, 1998
Can you say "Ndegeocello"?
Thought you couldn't. You're not alone. Lots of folks had trouble wrapping their mouths around that one Tuesday night at the Shoreline Amphitheatre, where the Lilith Fair began a two-day residency.
Meshell Ndegeocello (pronounced in-DAY-gee-o-CHELLO, more or less) is a celebrated bassist, singer and songwriter who's playing one leg of the second annual Lilith Fair.
Ndegeocello's stint was expanded to include the Mountain View dates when Sheryl Crow dropped out of the tour at the last minute. That addition and subtraction equaled some funkier moments on the main stage than the sold-out crowd might have expected.
Ndegeocello showed up during the Indigo Girls' set to play bass on "Power of Two." Natalie Merchant danced around the stage for a while. Second-and third-stage acts K's Choice and Tara MacLean also put in an appearance, and you just know they thought they were in a dream.
Ndegeocello opened the main stage in the sunny late afternoon, before the crowd had settled down. As a result, her set nearly got lost in the glare and hubbub.
The singer/bassist's hip-hop funk is deceptively easy listening. Pay attention to the lyrics, though, and you're treated to brutally sharp critiques of racism, homophobia and religion that, though smart and fresh, border on the doctrinaire. It's a far cry from the tune she's best known for, a duet with John Mellencamp on Van Morrison's "Wild Night."
"Jesus cured the blind man so that he could see the evils of the world," the deep-chested Ndegeocello pronounced, beginning her set none too gently with "The Way."
The song is a subtle exploration of Christianity that, among other things, questions Jesus, claiming that "Your words are used to enslave me." (Ndegeocello is African American.)
That's a heck of a lot to put into a pop song, but Ndegeocello pulled it off. After that she eased off, concentrating on the yearning, funk-fired love songs that compose the other side of her body of work.
She stayed away, though, from the sassy and confrontational "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)." Maybe she figured that song might not go over too well with all the sisterly solidarity at Lilith.
SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
Craig Marine
June 24, 1998
Meshell Ndegeocello got the main portion of the Lilith Fair show rolling with a magnificent set that featured her gripping, largely religious lyrical imagery wrapped around some steaming, funk-driven, soulful styling by her five person band. She came out dressed in a black leather jacket, her head nearly shaven and black rimmed glasses like Ernie wears on "My Three Sons." When she picks up her bass, she plays some of the best funk since Larry Graham from Sly Stone's band. It appeared that some in the audience didn't quite know what to make of such an aggressive, rocking opening, but fans would be advised not to miss her act.
TACOMA NEWS TRIBUNE
Stephanie Simons
June 23, 1998
Meshell Ndegeocello turned in a tight, funky set of songs about love, loyalty and the disillusionment over the lack of both. She played keyboards and guitar as well as bass, making it all look easy.
SEATTLE TIMES
Melanie McFarland
June 22, 1998
Clear, open skies smiling down upon the Gorge Amphitheatre, also drew raves from happy fair participants. Storm clouds passed over the valley, sprinkling a gentle shower on Ndegeocello as she finished her set, inspiring a soulful rain dance to the delight of the audience.
Ndegeocello's set was painfully short, hampering her ability to improvise; but she made the most of her 35 minutes by mixing both old and new songs.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Gene Stout
June 22, 1998
Meshell Ndegeocello opened the main stage with a bold, self-confident set. Dressed in black pants and sweater, with short-cropped hair, Ndegeocello sang and played several instruments.
DOWNBEAT
Dan Ouellette
October 1997
Grade: A
The highlight of the Festival d'Ete de Quebec proved to be Meshell Ndegeocello, who led her eight-member band through an urgent, edgy, kickass set of jazz-infused funk. The diminutive bassist/vocalist with close-cropped hair and dorky, black-rimmed glasses started out slowly, noodling on electric keys as her smoking funk machine revved up. But as soon as she strapped on her electric bass (with the battle cry Fight Racism emblazoned across its front) and started thumb-slapping, the set exploded into serious, get-down grooves. The fiesty Ndegeocello delivered smoking-gun solos and led her band through a style-o-rama finale, jamming with blues, swing and fusion sensibilities.
YOYO
Otis
August 1997
When I first entered the Rage on June 10, a different kind of vibe touched me. The atmosphere felt intimate compared to the usual sardine sensation I feel there. Meshell Ndegeocello must have a strong following of females because approximately 70% of the crowd was female.
Eventually, Meshell Ndegeocello and her band made it to the stage and the Rage transformed into one monstrous jazz lounge. She was constantly switching from bass guitar to keyboards throughout the night without missing a beat.
The highlight of the night was when she performed a 15 minute extended version of her hit "Outside Your Door." Her sexy, raspy voice flowed eloquently with the band's butta groove. Her band members had their brief moments of fame as they did what they do best; including a male vocalist that hit the high notes higher than Meshell herself.
After the stunning spotlight dedicated to this one song was burnt out, the concert returned to its uneventful progress because of her lack of interaction with the audience and the absent enthusiasm that they returned.
OREGONIAN
Melanie McFarland
June 14, 1997
Thursday night was all about vibes. If it wasn't, you weren't at La Luna, where vibrations registered high on the hip-hop Richter scale.
At the epicenter were the roots rappers of Spearhead and funk poetess Meshell Ndegeocello; whose co-headlined show had hip-hop heads jumping well past midnight.
It was a long concert but varied enough to make it easy to stay for nearly four hours. On her album Peace Beyond Passion, Ndegeocello deals in introspective soul, evoking the spirit of the Last Poets backed by a hot funk band.
Meanwhile, Spearhead's mixture of hip-hop, soul and reggae on "Chocolate Supa Highway" resembled seminal reggae groups, dropping political and socially conscious lyrics with beats and melodies that kept folks bouncing. DJ's Mestizo and Wicked had things flowing between sets with rap favorites and ear-tickling scratching.
Both Spearhead and Ndegeocello have received nationwide attention in the past year: The shy Ndegeocello even appearing on "Politically Incorrect" with Bill Maher.
Meanwhile Michael Franti, Spearhead's frontman, continues his crusade to expand political consciousness, picking up awards for the debut album, "Home," and singles "Hole in the Bucket" and "Positive" and educating the masses about the plague of evils upon us. These include racism and AIDS.
But politically conscious hip-hop is less about speechifying and more about testifying to the rhythm of lovely beats, rib-rattling bass lines and serious melodies.
Ndegeocello nearly stole the show with a jaw-slack jam session, a celebration to mark the end of this tour. Unlike much improvisation nowadays, it was skintight. Ndegeocello soothed with her deep, honey-coated voice as she exhaled poetic lyrics, but her instrumental versatility truly wowed the audience. The singer's inspired bass solo on "Deuteronomy: Niggerman" had the place throbbing in time with each splanked note; the layered vocals of "God Shiva" and "The Way" took on the spirituality of gospel tunes, benefiting from hefty contributions from her backup singers.
Spearhead might have been in a tough position as a follow-up to Ndegeocello's whopper of a performance, but the band was on target from the moment its members bounded onstage. Credit for its strong performance goes to the women of the band. Oneida James' booming bass kept the momentum high, and Trinna Simmons, Spearhead's diminutive vocalist with a titanic voice, hit each high note with earsplitting accuracy. Blasting out cuts such as the worker's blues "Tha Payroll," she is the soul singing foundation of the group.
It's not surprising to find out Franti is helping her work on a solo project. But the frontman and Sub Commander Ras I Zulu are griots of the old school, firing up the masses and keeping energy levels sky-high.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Mike Boehm
June 7, 1997
In an impressive anatomy-of-funk lesson Thursday night at the Coach House, Meshell Ndegeocello and her band had the foot bone connected to the head bone.
No, the shorn, bespectacled bandleader with the glitz-averse bearing of a jazz musician was not up there doing strange bodily contortions. But the D.C.-raised, L.A.-based performer took what James Brown called the "good foot" of body-motivating funk and connected it to purposeful, engaging subject matter.
Along with her splendid, eight-member band, Ndegeocello (the former Michelle Johnson's adopted name means "free like a bird" in Swahili) shaped a sophisticated, undulating and emotionally involving set. Hers may be the best form of neotraditional funk available in the hip-hop era.
Ndegeocello at times used rap and the cadences of the poetry slammer to convey meanings, but the payoff was in the playing and singing in a 100-minute set from her albums Plantation Lullabies and Peace Beyond Passion. Both have been hailed by critics and earned her a solid following, with SoundScan-monitored sales of more than 200,000 per release.
Playing to a near-capacity house, Ndegeocello first established her band's ability to play restless, freely probing music with exacting precision. Federico Peña, the keyboards player, and guitarist Allen Cato emerged as especially distinctive, versatile band members. Peña was a master of audacious yet apt synthesizer colors, and Cato unleashed a cool gleam or a hot-lava flow as the unfolding, elongated songs required.
Ndegeocello held back at first, only singing or dabbing on keyboards, before she picked up her trademark electric bass and started pumping out percussive funk riffs.
On her albums, Ndegeocello has yet to find a fully cohesive way to link the various strands of her songwriting. Some of her songs depict smoldering eroticism or pining, unrequited lovers. Others put up an adamant but not shrill resistance to racism and homophobia, concentrating less on the evils of the perpetrators than on the humanity of the victims and the emotional toll of bigotry.
In concert, her thematic contrasts seemed less jarring, given the band's rich instrumental weave. It all held together, except perhaps for the conventional, but still enjoyable, pop-R&B love song "Outside Your Door."
"Free My Heart," a yearning prayer, and "God Shiva," depicting a prayer momentarily answered via an almost carnal mystical connection with the divine, were the show's emotional and dramatic peak; Ndegeocello honored the songs' inwardness yet made their intensity palpable to her audience.
A long encore ranged through the funk treasure chest, trotting out famous riffs from Funkadelic, James Brown and the Temptations. With mock sternness, Ndegeocello at one point admonished her backing singers for trying to sneak in a disco refrain from Chic.
It was funk played for the sheer heat and fun of it, proving that it's also OK to leave the foot bone connected to the ankle bone and the ankle bone connected to the leg bone, all the better just to groove to the rhythm.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Natalie Nichols
June 4, 1997
Opening a sold-out, two-night stand, singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello quietly took possession of both the audience and her seven-piece band Monday night at the House of Blues.
Throughout the nearly two-hour set, she clearly displayed her influences. The sprawling, gradually building groove carried the spirit of Parliament-Funkadelic, while Ndegeocello's spoken-sung vocals and politically charged lyrics bore the soul of Gil Scott-Heron, and she offered a nod to Curtis Mayfield's social conscience, as well.
Still, her heady blend of social politics, lust and spirituality was wholly her own vision, driven at all times by her subtle, undeniable magnetism.
Often joined by Ndegeocello on bass and keyboards, the players cultivated a lithe jazz-flavored funk groove, into which they worked a surprising amount of variety. While frequently veering into abstraction, they never strayed far from the funk. Ndegeocello altered this sonic landscape at will. She seemed hard and closed off at first with the understated rage of "Leviticus: Faggot" (a song about homophobia that extends to a young man's parents), but then exhibited more playful and, eventually, more positively romantic notes.
Whether angry or impish, she displayed a burning intelligence and a keen sense of emotional detail, maintaining a spiritual equilibrium that infused everyone in the house.
OUTLINES
Jano
June 4, 1997
Meshell Ndegeocello doesn't ever have to worry about wearing out her welcome in Chicago. She is embraced by her fans here like a sister who comes home every once in a while; when she comes home the celebration and the love is like no other.
Wednesday, May 21, The Vic Theatre hosted the latest concert tour of Ndegeocello. She played to a sold-out "love jones" crowd. The creative, cosmopolitan, fashioned audience was just as interesting to watch as her. Their enthusiasm planted a seed for the right energy interaction between them and the ever-evolving musician/magician. Part of the attraction she has, is the marrying of the creatives—gays, straights, lovers of blues, jazz and soul. She is old school, new school, no school. Continuously approaching and acknowledging boundaries then flirting dangerously close to the edge.
Part of her fans want to "do" her, part of them want to be her; open evolving and constantly exploring the human sexual terrain. She is directly confrontational with her musicianship and approaching her instrument with a firm aggressive grasp.
Each of the five times I have seen her, she has upped the ante. This show exposed her talent as a musician, performer and band leader. The tightness of her band was reminiscent of bands such as Bootsy Collins or Prince and the Revolution. Long instrumental play yielded to vocals. She was battling the flu and that might have had something to do with it. The guitar accompaniment of band member Allen Cato was a throw-back to Jimmy Page or Ernie Isley. No. He didn't sound like them but his instrument was a lead voice in the total effect of the sound.
This show was not about selling more copies of her latest release Peace Beyond Passion, although I'm sure it helped. This show was about a musician who loves live performance, the re-creation, the improvisation and the risk of it all.
For those who had come to hear a patented show, they had to go home and play the CD (she didn't even play "Leviticus Faggot"). She re-defined live entertainment for a large part of the audience who was born in the '70s. The reclamation of rock music as a Black art form had some people confused, but she stood and played from a place she had always been headed.
It has been intimated that she will soon be taking on her Muslim name, Bashir Shakur, reflective of her recently embracing the faith. Let's just hope that this will continue to crystallize her talent and not repress or isolate it. Because, on this night she was, "all that and a bag of chips," and her band kicked ass.
MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
Britt Robson
May 25, 1997
Among artists engaged in the increasingly exciting fusion between hip hop and rhythm & blues musics, you could call Meshell Ndegeocello the kinky, older, "kissin'" cousin of singer Erykah Badu. Better yet, Ndegeocello is the spiritual/sexual successor to Prince in the realm of inspirational genre—and gender—bending outrage.
No doubt the 28-year-old Maryland native wants to cause a ruckus. But like her two acclaimed CDs, Ndegeocello's 75-minute performance at First Avenue in Minneapolis demonstrates that she is aiming for enlightenment—within herself and others—as much as fame and attention.
An award-winning electric bassist, Ndegeocello didn't even pick up the instrument (adorned with the phrase "Fight Racism") until the evening's fourth number.
As a black, androgynous female with a range of attitudes that span the spectrum, it's not surprising that she equates reconcilation with freedom, and goes out of her way to drive home that theme. This was especially notable on the gentle ballad
"Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart," with its enduring refrain of "come and take my hand." The tension and release that goes with living outside the social norms is also evident in her music, which on Saturday segued back and forth between hard, riveting funk rhythms and soft jazzy washes of keyboard and guitar.
Backed by a superb five-piece band and two male singers, she pushed the funk the hardest on a sprawling, raucous version of her minor hit, "If That Was Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)." Stretching nearly 20 minutes to accommodate lengthy keyboard and guitar solos, the song eclipsed its now familiar naughtiness and its pop melody.
Other highlights included the spunky opener, "Step Into The Projects," an oozing, sexually charged ballad titled "Stay," and a spirited take on the song "The Way," that again roamed from funky to smooth and back without losing the power of its religious-tinged lyrics.
Ndegeocello, whose name means "free like a bird" in Swahili, was obviously in the mood to communicate profundities at First Avenue. Referring to her increasing popularity, an audience member yelled near the end of her performance "You're on your way!"
Ndegeocello did a double-take, then replied, "I'm already there. It is much more important for me to be able to sit down and talk to somebody." Then she spun a sweet, gentle ballad that did just that.
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
Nick Carter
May 23, 1997
Imagine bits of punk, funk, rock, folk and jazz, with some poetry-like lyrics sprinkled atop the mix, and you're on your way to capturing the performance Thursday night at the Rave by Meshell Ndegeocello.
The opening song by the singer and multi-instrumentalist set the course for the entire evening. It began with some fusion-like jazz bits layered atop mellow beats and bluesy keyboard runs, but the words were more like free verse than lyrical rhymes.
Ndegeocello evokes a sound like that of the more progressive soul and R&B artists of the '70s: the spirit of, say, Stevie Wonder back then, and the open-jamming of Earth, Wind and Fire. The social and political nature of the lyrics, meanwhile, rekindles the black nationalism of Curtis Mayfield and even Gil Scott-Heron.
One song, "Leviticus: Faggot," details the plight of a friend beaten to death for being gay. It has Ndegeocello weeping out a soulful chorus while the rap-like verses bounce off an experimental jazz beat.
Most of Thursday's show was culled from Ndegeocello's pair of critically acclaimed albums 1993's Plantation Lullabies and last year's Peace Beyond Passion, which has led to four Grammy nominations but still no breakthrough success. Deadlines prevented a review of the entire show.
Ndegeocello played most of the instruments on her two albums, and Thursday night showed off her musical dexterity, switching from keyboard to bass and back again. Her "slap" bass technique had her drawing on the strings as if they were those of an archer's bow, producing a thick, snapping sound.
Ndegeocello's music is at odds with the mainly rap or highly produced pop-R&B of '90s black music.
Her willingness to fuse disparate music styles with charged lyrical matters is refreshing, but her breezy and fusion-like jams tend to blend together and sound too much alike. The show perhaps could use a few old-school R&B hit melodies and hooks to contrast with its many open-ended passages.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Teresa Wiltz
May 22, 1997
Some folks call this tsunami of a new jack soulsters epitomized by the likes of D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Tony Rich, Maxwell, Eric Benét, Dionne Ferris, et al., "alternative hiphop." Others dub their music "neo soul," a nod to the slavish devotion these Generation Xers give to that dead decade they call "7-0." (Translation: the '70s.)
To be sure, poet/bassist/keyboardist/singer Meshell Ndegeocello is lumped into that category of buttery smooth soul that's taking over the airwaves these days. But as she proved in a 80-minute Monday night concert at the Metro, Ndegeocello is an organic force of her own, defying easy categorizations as she spoke/sang her lyrics, pounded on her bass and jammed on the keyboards. (Ndegeocello was scheduled to play another show Wednesday at the Vic Theatre.)
With no new CD to pump (her second CD, Peace Beyond Passion, was released last summer) Ndegeocello—she of the cleanshaven head—was free to experiment, playing with the boundaries of her own music. Thus, "Outside Your Door," where she croons, "Here I sit waiting/ Just waiting/ Anticipating a chance to run into you" became an extended reminiscence on that first time as keyboardist Federico Gonzales Peña and guitarist Allen Cato took turns weaving their magic.
Dressed in a black mock turtleneck and hiphugging blue jeans that threatened to slide past her hips, Ndegeocello flirted with her band and with her audience.
"Would you like to make love to me?" teased Ndegeocello as an all-girl contingent screamed in affirmation.
This was a concert for Ndegeocello fans who know every lyric and every guitar lick by heart, and who don't mind going wherever she wants to take them musically. The not-quite-capacity crowd was mellow, and Ndegeocello took advantage of the sleepy vibe, turning her often angry tunes into dreamy meditations.
Instead of cranking out a wring-out-the-sweat jam as she did last summer at a sold-out concert at the Park West. Ndegeocello soothed the audience with pillow talk, filling the stage with husky murmurs, heavy sighs, sly jokes and pyrotechnical turns on the bass. Her first hit, "Dred Loc," morphed into a teasing bit of foreplay, repeating over and over the first two words of the song, "Let me," but never finishing the chorus, "run my fingers through your dred locs..." She even took on nasty girl rapper Lil' Kim's single "Crush On You," turning it upside down into a jazzy little bit of improvisation.
For the encore, opening act Rahsaan Patterson and his band joined Ndegeocello for a pull-out the stops medly of "I'm Diggin' You (Like An Old Soul Record)" and "Who Is He And What Is He To You."
PLAIN DEALER
Michael Norman
May 21, 1997
The Artist Formerly Known as Prince may have dazzled the audience at his concert Saturday night at Cleveland State University. But he left Cleveland on a sour note early Sunday morning, after refusing to perform for more than 500 diehard fans who paid $20 to attend an after-show party at the Odeon Concert Club in the Flats.
An angry crowd demanding refunds confronted police, and the Odeon staff around 3 a.m. Sunday as Prince made a hasty getaway through a side door and onto his tour bus. Things turned uglier when the artist's management team, which rented the Odeon and promoted the show, refused to issue the refunds.
No arrests were made, but it took about a dozen police officers, nightsticks drawn, to contain the situation.
Louie Moore, who handled publicity for Prince's appearance in Cleveland, said yesterday that the 38-year-old star intended to perform at the Odeon but backed out at the last minute because he was "tired and losing his voice."
"They never promised people he would perform," Moore said. "We made it clear it was only a possibility."
Fliers for the Odeon show billed the event as the "official after-show party" and promised live music, DJs and a "special surprise." The fliers were handed out to fans as they left CSU's Convocation Center.
An announcement about the party was also made at the Odeon during a performance that night by Meshell Ndegeocello. Concertgoers there were offered a discount to get into the Prince event.
Prince showed up at the Odeon around 1 a.m. Sunday, but his arrival was never officially announced. He stayed in a private area of the club, talking with Ndegeocello and greeting a handful of backstage visitors.
Ndegeocello's performance ended about 11 p.m. Saturday, and the club was cleared to allow the "after party" ticket holders to enter.
Around 3 a.m., one of Prince's assistants, Billy Sparks, told the backstage visitors that the artist was "too tired to perform" and wanted to save his voice for a show the next night in Louisville, Kentucky.
No announcement was made from the stage, according to audience members. The evening ended with no live music and no special surprise guest.
Michael Belkin, whose family-run concert promotion company owns the Odeon, ended up taking most of the heat from the crowd.
"It was a tough situation because the event was run by Prince's organization," Belkin said. "They rented the room from us, they promoted the show and they collected all the money from the fans.
"I was disheartened at the way it came off. People wanted a refund. If I had been the one collecting the money, I would have given it back to them. But it was Prince's people who had the money and, by the time things got out of hand, they were on the bus with the money to Louisville."
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
Rosalind Cummings-Yeates
May 21, 1997
Coolly riding on the new wave of retro soul music that she helped to launch four years ago, Meshell Ndegeocello inspired the packed house at Metro on Monday night to rock in unison. With her pumped-out, funked-up, laid-back tunes, the androgynous singer/rapper/ musician recalled a "back in the day" groove-heavy, soul show.
Strolling onto the stage in jeans and black T-shirt, with her characteristic nonchalance in full display, Ndegeocello didn't look at all like the critically acclaimed, controversial figure credited with steering hip-hop toward a more positive path. Her debut album, Plantation Lullabies (1993), saddled with the "alternative hip-hop" label, much to the singer's dismay, actually stirred together a heady mix of traditional soul, funk and jazz with drowsy, politically charged, spoken-word lyrics that sparked a sensation. Her current album, Peace Beyond Passion, continues on the same path, addressing everything from her bisexuality to fidelity.
Showcasing her authoritative delivery and sizzling bass and keyboard work, Ndegeocello masterfully guided her band through her brand of unvarnished soul. Songs such as "Two Lonely Hearts (On the Subway)" and "The Way" were filled with blistering guitar and keyboard solos. The crowd roared at the first bars of "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)," her sassy R&B hit from 1994, and she dripped out the words with all the required "sista' girl" attitude: "You can say I'm wrong/ say I ain't right/ but if that's your boyfriend/ he wasn't last night."
Unaccustomed to the distance afforded by the Metro stage, Ndegeocello complained, "This is so weird, I like to feel y'all." She promptly moved to the stage's edge, where she soared on the melancholy ballad "Outside Your Door." For the encore, she played an extended version of "I'm Diggin' You (Like an Old Soul Record)," with a few chords of George Clinton's "One Nation Under a Groove" slipped in, to noisy approval. Then she slid into her Bill Withers remake, "Who Is He and What Is He to You," with strains of James Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" tossed in for funky good measure.
Rashaan Patterson, the eagerly anticipated opening act, shone with retro-soul splendor, from his tinted '90s 'fro, to his honeyed, crooning voice. He thrilled with 30 minutes of pure soul-singing, featuring a sexy version of Michael Jackson's "Rock With You."
PLAIN DEALER
Sheila Simmons
May 19, 1997
Meshell Ndegeocello speaks to a cross culture of forward-thinking music fans, who Saturday night seemed hardly phased at missing the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, in concert at the same time at the Cleveland State University Convocation Center.
Ndegeocello briefly reminded the crowd of his appearance, when her band riffed through the refrain of a song by "his purple badness."
But Ndegeocello kept her own crowd in the palm of a strong, confident, driving hand—one talented enough not only to handily direct a sizzling five-piece, back-up band, but one that also occassionaly ran its fingers over Ndegeocello's bass guitar with a sense of command.
Ndegeocello did not stifle the crowd with a strong grip of her palm, however. It was just loose enough to allow the packed, high-spirited crowd comfort in her late-night house party vibe. It was set by music steeped in classic soul, deep funk, bits of jazz and rock. Lyrics pushed the envelope on racism and sexuality.
Ndegeocello took the stage to the upbeat sounds of "Step Into the Projects," from her acclaimed debut album, Plantation Lullabies, followed by the moody "Two Lonely Hearts (On the Subway)" and funky "Deuteronomy: Niggerman."
The band worked Ndegeocello's sassy, defiant "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" into a jam session. She later showed her ability to be soft as well, capturing the tender heartbreak of the moving tune, "Outside Your Door," and a sweetly exquisite performance of "Stay."
The openly bisexual artist and musician, who keeps her head shaved, steered clear of her more controversial, political songs, in which she often takes bold stands against racism and homophobia.
"Leviticus: Faggot" and other social commentary songs did not make the line-up.
With a soulful tenor that holds the sweetness, texture, allure and temptations of deep, dark chocolate, Ndegeocello maintained a spirited mood. She twice asked the audience, "Don't you feel good?"
Ndegeocello's vocals certainly gave the impression that she did, despite an apparent on-setting cold. She coughed once into the microphone, issued a call for the immunity-building herbs, Echinacea and Golden Seal, and mused over the idea of a body rub in Nyquil.
Not only did Ndegeocello give The Artist a nod in her show, but also paid smooth homage to such soul artists as James Brown, Cheryl Lynn and the Commodores.
The encore, consisting of "I'm Diggin You (Like an Old Soul Record)" and "Who is He and What is He to You," was too short. But the Odeon was forced to promptly kick out Ndegeocello's crowd after the show, offering attendees a discount to The Artist's after-party, which had been scheduled there as well. While some attendees lined up outside to purchase tickets, others went away, sure they had already received the best show of the night.
BUFFALO NEWS
Toni Ruberto
May 19, 1997
When Meshell Ndegeocello speaks, people listen. When she sings, they emotionally embrace her.
Alternating between a spoken-word style and singing, Ndegeocello enraptured the attentive standing-room only crowd at the Tralfamadore Cafe Friday evening with her brash stories of racism, spirituality, hypocrisy and sexuality.
Angry, gutsy and articulate, Ndegeocello possesses a poetic soul that chooses to explore the fabric of life without self-pity. The funky, jazz-infused opening number "Step into the Projects," for instance, details the struggles and pains of the ghetto that can be eased, even if only temporarily, through love.
Backed by an eight-piece band that kept the beat-driven music in high gear, Ndegeocello drew thunderous cheers whenever she picked up her bass. The Grammy-nominated "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" was punctuated by her slap-bass technique and drew screams of "boyfriend" by the understanding women in the audience as the song escalated into an all-out jam.
Ndegeocello smoothed the sharpness of her music for the slow, breezy stylings of the emotionally rich "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart" and added a spacey, electronic touch to create the sensual grooves of "Stay."
She ended the night with the high-energy funk of "I'm Diggin' You (Like An Old Soul Record)." The audience chose to ignore the song's "sit back and relax" chorus, choosing to finally get out of their seats and dance.
Adding background vocals to Ndegeocello's band was Rahsaan Patterson, who opened the show with his own eight-piece musical entourage. Probably best-known for co-writing Brandy's No. 1 hit, "Baby," Patterson showcased music off his debut collection of R&B songs. He displayed a smooth, romantic singing style and a relaxed stage presence on the sweet "Come Over," a song that slowly melted into Michael Jackson's "Rock with You," and his new single, the slow groovin' "Where You Are." The sweetness of his music, however, was soured by his incessant crotch-holding and cigarette smoking.
TORONTO SUN
Errol Nazareth
May 16, 1997
Click here to read the full review.
CHART ATTACK
Jeffrey Haas
May 16, 1997
Meshell Ndegeocello is the beautiful, bald, black babe who played some truly bombastic bass at the Phoenix Concert Theatre last night. Grooving along to the incredible funk laid down by her eight-man band, she sang and danced for almost two hours while the audience moved as a collective slave to her music. The hip was happening and the hop was everywhere.
All cheesy funk metaphors from this white boy aside, my personal opinion is that the show was great. Meshell's music, which comes across as intelligent and powerful on compact disc, takes on a life of its own when performed live. The intensity of her passion on songs like "Stay" and "Leviticus: Faggot" were so severe that you couldn't just watch her; you had to stare.
Her face contorts when she sings, emoting pain, anger, frustration and elation. Some of it was just her working the crowd, but there was a lot of spirituality there too. On "Deuteronomy: Niggerman" she believed what she was singing and let you know that.
This tour is in support of her Peace Beyond Passion album and most of the songs on it are sombre, with weighty issues about her struggles against racism, sexism and homophobia. But somehow these songs came across as funky and made the crowd want to dance. Most of that vibe was created by her kick-ass rhythm section of percussion, drums, guitar, keyboards and bass. There were also three doo-wop boys to throw down some classic, sensual R & B harmonies.
She picked up her bass like a rock star might pick up his guitar for a solo. But she wasn't showing off how fast she could play; she was showing the crowd how she could kick Bootsy Collins' ass in a groove-off. Slapping and popping in a way that would make Les Claypool blush, Meshell was impressive.
Although the energy was high all night, the most soulful moments were created when Meshell played songs off her first album, Plantation Lullabies. "I'm Diggin' You (Like An Old Soul Record)" drove the crowd wild. And there were lots of girls singing along to "If That's Your Boyfriend [He Wasn't Last Night]."
Too often thought of as just a bass player, Meshell Ndegeocello is also a talented songwriter and performer. She has a lot to say, and it comes across in a way that makes you want to listen. An almost sold-out crowd listened up last night and they had a real good time.
MONTREAL GAZETTE
Elizabeth Bromstein
May 14, 1997
Very rarely do you find a musician who can hold an audience rapt in a sort of musical wonder. But it does happen.
Meshell Ndegeocello has this capacity. She's an experience.
Ndegeocello played the Spectrum last night. No, let me rephrase that: she moved the Spectrum last night.
The last time she played Montreal it was an equally spectacular show at the Cabaret. Will the sister ever disappoint?
No way. She's got soul. That's for sure. It's a smooth soul, funk, jazz thing that she and her eight-piece backup band were doing up there.
The heavy jazz influence, understandably, stems from her studies at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C. Born in Berlin, raised in Washington, she now resides in New York.
Amazingly talented, Ndegeocello plays keyboards and bass besides singing. Slap bass, old-style finger-funk bass—boy, does she play bass. When she's really kickin', it's kind of reminiscent of Larry Graham of Graham Central Station and Sly and the Family Stone.
I hate to sound "power to the people-ish," but there is something almost transcendent about the way Ndegeocello plays to a room. Her voice, deep and kind of manly, has a way of soothing and caressing the whole room all at once. Even when she's singing the words "If that's your boyfriend he wasn't last night," because I had him.
It doesn't matter what she's saying, it's how she says it.
This is a good thing because the Spectrum's sound system might be due for a checkup. At one point, Ndegeocello was saying some obviously very poignant and meaningful things into the microphone. Unfortunately, you couldn't hear a damn word. The woman next to me said "I can't hear what she's saying but I'm sure it's fabulous."
When she asks you if you're feelin' all right, you get the sense that she really cares if you're feelin' all right. How does she do that?
Her lyrics explore spirituality, hypocrisy, religion, racism and a whole bunch of other things that might make you cringe. Maybe that's the idea.
You can feel these people working together. The band supplied support, great harmonies and tribal percussion.
Opener Rahsaan Patterson deserves a mention for his oh-so-fine voice and enigmatic appeal. He later joined in as a backup singer for Ndegeocello. That seems to be just the way these things work. Everybody grooves off each other. Can you feel the love tonight?
Meshell Ndegeocello's CD Peace Beyond Passion is available and well worth a trip to your local record store.
Kofi Taha
May 10, 1997
Peace y'all.
Just briefly, the show was all that and a chocolate milkshake. Rahsaan Patterson opened for Meshell and played a very nice, relatively funky 45 minute set. Meshell's guitarist, Allen Cato, sat in for the whole set, while Meshell came on for the closing number, the current single "Stop By", which she absolutely tore up on bass. For those of you who don't know, Rahsaan can blow his ass off, though some of his material is uneven and his band is kind of standard.
After a 15-20 minute break, Meshell returned to the stage at 9:10 (only 10 minutes late, something Prince might want to remember) and proceded to rip through a very tight, genre defying hour and forty minute set. The new band, playing only its 7th gig together, sounded terrific as it went to church, funked, go-goed, rocked, jazzed and rhythm and bluesed. Danny Sadownick has been replaced with Alfredo Mojica on congas, Biti Strauchn has been replaced by Bobby Jackson on background vocals, and Michael Neal has been replaced by David Dyson on bass; the rest of the personnel remains Gene Lake on drums, Federico Gonzalez Peña on keys, Allen Cato on guitar, Arif St. Michael singing background and Meshell on bass, keys and vocals. Rahsaan Patterson sat in for the whole set on background vocals, Keith Crouch, Rahsaan's keyboardist and producer, as well as Danny Sadownick, sat in on "Soul record."
As any good musician would seemingly want to do, Meshell has changed up some of the arrangements to keep things interesting, particularly on "Faggot" with a new bass intro and varied synth chord hits, "Free My Heart" with a new gently rolling, almost acoustic sounding, guitar section, and "The Way" with a rock guitar break replacing the gospel breakdown previously used—all of them worked, all of them sounded fresh. Meshell stuck to keys and vocals for "Projects" and "Two Lonely Hearts" and then began an evening of electifying, two-month old laundry funk bass on "Boyfriend"—for those of you who are familiar with the Prince's nasty bass solos on "Face Down," his was only 3 week old funk in comparison. She tore up "Faggot," "Free My Heart" and "Soul Record" so severely that Bootsy Collins might decide to take up the tuba. Her vocals were also strong and Rahsaan and Arif sat nicely in the pocket, working the Baptist church-style accents with perfection.
Enough can't be said about Cato, who is an absolutely blessed guitarist—he brought the house down with his jazzy George Benson-esque breakdown during "Outside Your Door" and raised "Free My Heart" to new levels. As always, Gene Lake proved to be the baddest, most versatile drummer out, and Fred ripped through his three stacks of keys with his own mix of Stevie Wonder and science fiction funk. Dyson did well on bass (for obvious reasons a very difficult assignment in Meshell's band) while Alfredo and Bobby Jackson seemed to still be somewhat tentative, though none damaged the show in the least; they stand out only because Meshell so beautifully highlights the talents of her other musicians and, in comparison, they seemed quiet, perhaps still feeling out the material.
The only sour point of the evening had nothing to do with Meshell—for about 10 minutes (for the end of "Faggot" and the beginning of "Free My Heart") the sound system messed up, leaving only the left channel audible. People were pissed—I went over and started yelling at the cat on the sound board, who didn't seem to notice (perhaps because of the woman, or more accurately the breasts, he was staring at) but it was a short in the board itself, which he fixed (very scientifically) by kicking the board a couple of times). But other than that the show was flawless.
Meshell was loose and interacted with the crowd with love and genuine sincerity. The place was packed, perhaps with 1,500, maybe more. One sad note from my perspective, was that the tune that got the biggest reaction out of the crowd (even though everyone was very excited and into the show) was the cover of Lil' Kim's tune—Meshell and the background crew just did the chorus that Biggie Smalls does on the track, making it actually sound bumping. What I mean by sad is that this moment highlighted the way radio and consumers ignore Meshell in order to pump bullshit tracks that she can do with her eyes closed—if she made some old basic bullshit she would be a star and wouldn't have to wonder why a brilliant album like PBP isn't even gold.
Borrowing her favorite Wah Wah Watson expression, Meshell said to the crowd during "Soul Record": "People ask me 'does it bother you that radio doesn't play you?' Well, when I'm up here, I could care for fuck!" But sheeeit, I care—industry people are pathetic and the public is so passive that it renders itself stupid.
One last thing, and yeah, I'm gonna say it: While Prince may out perform Meshell in a certain sense (they are such different performers playing music with such different content) Meshell's band takes out the NPG on any given night—they are tight as a gnat's ass. The overall show, the band's performance, Meshell's arrangements, playing and band leadership, the lyrical content and musical depth, and the passion and sincerity with which Meshell bares her soul and beliefs to her audience, all combined to create an unmatchable experience, even for the Kid himself. Meshell is no joke—I just wish people were ready for her.
ROLLING STONE
Sean Daly
May 8, 1997
If bald is beautiful, Meshell Ndegeocello's sold-out crowd Thursday night was the best-looking bunch Bohager's has seen in some time. Smooth pates were a dime a dozen (many belonged to women), and the evening's equally shorn star was most appreciative.
"Wow, if I take off my clothes, will you take off yours?" Ndegeocello purred while scanning the audience. "Let's see how freaky Baltimore is. Let's see if you motherfuckers can get crazy."
From there, the black, bisexual mother of one broke into a show sculpted with hefty helpings of rock, rap, funk, hip-hop, soul and jazz. And for a show that lasted well past the two-hour mark, the song selection was relatively sparse; Ndegeocello and her ever-tight eight-piece ensemble blew-up each number into groove-happy jams.
The just-over-five-foot Ndegeocello is a commanding presence while simply standing at her mike or noodling at the keyboards, but when she finally strapped on her bass (which is almost larger than she is) for "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" she officially owned the place. For the casual radio listeners who only know her as "the black woman in the Mellencamp video," her virtuosity leading the band through an all-out, 12-minute take on "Boyfriend" would have been a revelation.
"You want to talk about love? Or do you want to talk about fucking? Oh, I see, this is a fucking crowd. Well, I know that feeling, too." With that tasty proclamation, Ndegeocello eased the relentless revival pace and slipped into "Outside Your Door," adding during the intro, "Mind if we play something slow? I feel like you're all up on each other. It'll be worth your while."
Of course, it wouldn't be a Ndegeocello show if the perfectionist performer didn't show a little of her moodier side. After closing the pre-encore proceedings with a gorgeous, wide-open take on "Leviticus: Faggot," the band returned for a new ballad, "Stay." But Ndegeocello decided to return to the stage once again, even after the house lights had been turned on.
"They told us we have to leave, but you want one more?" she shouted, playing the bass line for "I'm Diggin' You (Like an Old Soul Record)." When the song morphed into a cover of Prince's "I Wanna Be Your Lover," though, things got ugly: First Ndegeocello's bass amp went, then her keyboards quit. Shouting "motherfucker" at just about everyone in sight and flailing her arms, Ndegeocello stormed from the stage leaving her band (no doubt used to the theatrics) to close with a flourish. Lesson learned: Ndegeocello will groove about peace and understanding all night long, just don't mess with her sound.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Greg Kot
January 3, 1997
Best concert of 1996
June 10, 1996: Meshell Ndegeocello's got a feel for old-school soul and new-wave hip-hop in her rhythms and vocal inflections, but Ndegeocello also has a sharp, inquisitive mind and the guts to use it. When she sings a song such as "Leviticus: Faggot," she expects the audience to get beyond the shock value of that hateful word and hear the story about a youth coming to grips with his sexuality in the face of monstrous intolerance. She's that rare performer who demands something of her audience beyond mere revelry, and on this night the connection was profound.
THE INDEPENDENT
Cole Moreton
December 6, 1996
It was a strange sight. Young white men—at least half the audience—swaying alongside their black brothers and sisters, mouthing the
words: "All I ever wanted was a niggerman."
Meshell Ndegeocello seems to love confusing people. Take that name.
Pronounced "N-day-gay-O-cello" according to her record company, it means "free like a bird" in Swahili. There was never any chance of her simplifying it to suit our stumbling tongues.Why should she? Its very awkwardness is memorable.
What is she? A fluent rap poet with a cool anger? A smooth soul diva with a voice like melting butter? A ferocious bass player who leads a band that can funk so hard your chest feels like it's about to cave in? The answer, of course, is all of them.
She is both androgynous and deeply sexy. Dressed in black pants and shirt, her head shaved and eyes hidden behind wraparound shades, she moved with precision and economy, directing musicians and frowning. She frowned a lot—at band members, at the sound man, at her own keyboard playing—and this was serious music.
Neither was the end of the show very funny. After 90 minutes of cool tunes and hot, heavy rhythm, the crowd was baying for an encore. It was refused. A flustered Meshell came back on stage to explain that there was a curfew, but the audience stampedits feet and hollered. Her band started playing again, with the house lights up and the PA off, but it was useless. Prowling up and down in a state of fury and agitation, she was guided from the stage by a very big bouncer. Brave man.
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SPOKANE SPOKESMAN
Jim Kershner
November 8, 1996
Meshell Ndegeocello opened the show with a well-received set, soulful and funky.
OREGONIAN
Kyle O'Brien
November 7, 1996
The opening act, the multi-talented, powerfully voiced Meshell Ndegeocello, grooved with musicianly abandon but suffered from the dreaded opening-band sound-mix curse.
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Dunkor Imani
November 1, 1996
As the ultra-conservative P.C. corps and religious right attempt to close the mind of America, Meshell Ndegeocello (Swahili for "Free as a Bird") has her foot lodged defiantly in the way. Playing music that often re-interprets biblical themes to the tunes of homosexuality, racism, feminism, and abuse, she has shaken many pious, card-carrying members to the core.
But Ndegeocello doesn't sweat over those who throw rocks at her music and then hide their hands. Like a new prophet, her message-within-the-music manifesto continues to stubbornly insist on less moral inquisition and more human tolerance.
That determined aesthetic marked her 1993 debut album Plantation Lullabies, as it does her current release Peace Beyond Passion. Supporting her new release, she appeared at Mississippi Nights on Monday.
Sporting her trademark skinhead haircut and dressed in a gold shirt, zebra-colored pants and New York Lugz-styled boots, she strode onto
the stage. She simply asked if the crowd was ready to do it. After a resounding "Yes!," she proceeded to bare her soul to a funky bass beat.
Ndegeocello mines her religious upbringing to address issues. She started in almost immediately with "Leviticus: Faggot," a song that
recounts a gay man ostracized by his own family when they discover his sexual preference. "Deuteronomy: Niggerman" questioned the black woman's need to be validated by a black man, often in spite of abuse.
These songs explored Old Testament themes in a manner Moses probably didn't have in mind. Leviticus and Deuteronomy represent the law before
compassion and tolerance. Ndegeocello revisits these two biblical books to create second opinions of their draconian edicts.
On the other hand, the themes of the New Testament are about living life more abundantly and committing random acts of kindness. So, it
made sense for Ndegeocello to sing songs like "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart," a piece about being allowed to worship as the individual
sees fit, or "The Way," which trumpets the New Testament philosophy of inclusion and tolerance while satirizing
those who believe they're too righteous to have sin. To wit: "They say you're the way, the light/ the light is so blinding/ your followers
condemn me/ your words used to enslave me." These are not the words of a typical Sunday morning sermon used to coerce a congregation to tithe.
But Ndegeocello isn't typical in her life or her music. She draws upon her gospel, jazz, rock, funk and poetry background. Her brutally honest, vein-opening style recalls the work of poets like Sapphire or Michelle T. Clinton, and like them, she wields words to force discourse. Yet, she doesn't preach.
Although there's a message in her music, Ndegeocello's sound is pure funky fun. This is a woman who is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, able to bring it all together with her signature bass sound: bold, aggressive and resounding, just like her.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Teresa Gubbins
October 27, 1996
Opening for the Dave Matthews Band, Meshell Ndegeocello put forth her own version of a big jam. She was backed by a full band—two backup singers, two percussionists, guitars and keyboards—and yet she still played two instruments—keyboards and bass guitar—and sang, too. But all the instruments in the world can't make you a more charismatic performer. As she switched from vocals to keyboard to bass again, it felt more as if she were putting on a one-woman show in her back yard than playing at an arena. Her charms may work in an intimate setting, but on the big stage at Starplex, she just wasn't enough.
MSOPR PRESS RELEASE
October 24, 1996
On October 7th, Meshell performed at an in-store autograph session at the Virgin Megastore in Los Angeles, drawing the largest crowd ever for an in-store appearance at the Sunset Boulevard location. More than 500 people jammed the store, while another 200 fans had to watch from outside when the fire marshal closed the doors.
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Mark Brown
October 7, 1996
You see Meshell Ndegeocello onstage and wonder what in the world she could have to be nervous about. She's a brilliant singer, an incredibly skilled player and a breathtaking songwriter. Yet in interviews, she protests that she's tired, she's had enough, and she doesn't want to be the star anymore.
The vulnerability doesn't show. Any tentativeness, nerves or frailty is left in the wings. When Ndegeocello hits the stage, she's all alive with fire and steel. For many artists, a concert is just a place to play their songs; for those rare few, it's a place where the real art happens; the soul is exposed, and the music from the studio is pushed to a higher plane.
Saturday's show, at the tail end of a long tour, was as revealing and true a concert as an artist can be expected to give. In an era in which musicians use music as a vehicle to air their gripes with the world, Ndegeocello still uses it to look within. Her thoughts and emotions are shared, but she's not asking for pity—just that you listen and understand.
With a smooth yet blazing style of funk and soul, she drew us in for a couple of spiritual, soul-rattling hours, leaving a more-than-sold-out house gasping for breath.
Songs such as "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" and "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart" were stretched far beyond their short studio incarnations, becoming 10-minute workouts of funk, vocals and soul.
She doesn't just play the bass and keyboards. It's like watching guitarist Richard Thompson or a trained classical pianist. Ndegeocello knows her instruments inside out, upside down and through and through. She seems mentally to be almost inside them; she isn't having to think a moment about what she's playing, she just plays, whether it's popping, snapping bass solos or funky, stabbing keyboard runs.
Her snappy, sharp backing band followed wherever she went.
The result is a seemingly effortless flow of music straight from her heart. Songs from 1993's brilliant Plantation Lullabies were mostly fun and funky. "If That's Your Boyfriend" had a more worldly and world-weary tone than its studio counterpart, while "I'm Digging You (Like an Old Soul Record)" was smooth and breezy.
It was her moody material from the newer, more personal, yet more political Peace Beyond Passion album that dug deepest. Be it the anti-homophobic bent of "Leviticus: Faggot" or the bitter reproach of Bill Withers' revamped "Who is He and What is He to You," Ndegeocello explored all the dark corners of the controversial album.
During the extended version of the searching "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart," Ndegeocello brought the band down for a quiet middle interlude as she crooned the chorus. The song's plea for freedom—from drugs, from pain, from "worldly wants," from anything—built and built.
She got deeply inside the song, disappearing into the lyrics. She crooned "Take my hand, come and take my hand," stretched out a hand and touched the emotional core of the song. The band kicked back in with a force that made her jump as if she'd received a shock. It was a moment that couldn't be faked or forced; for a moment, you saw a woman in turmoil, pleading through music for strength. You're left feeling almost voyeuristic, yet at the same time cleansed and renewed.
The offstage frailties are taking their toll, and Ndegeocello knows it. She recognizes that she's flying too close to the flame. Rather than continue and push her art further as a solo artist and risk whatever personal self-destruction that could come with it, she's elected to back off.
She's planning on laying back, working in a group setting and taking some of the pressure off—for herself and her little boy, who watched his mom from the edge of the stage Saturday night.
You pray that she finds the peace and rejuvenation she needs, because as she clearly demonstrated onstage, she is one of the true groundbreaking artists of this decade. What she's produced so far is remarkable; what still lies within her could be magical.
Doyle Bramhall II opened the show with a Prince fixation that went beyond just the feather boa wrapped around his neck. Working with Wendy and Lisa of Purple One fame doesn't hurt, either. Bramhall's blend of pop, rock and funk at first seemed an odd choice for an opening act for Ndegeocello. But by the time Bramhall peeled off his third or fourth invigorating guitar solo, it didn't matter.
Jaws dropped and the crowd went crazy for a guy hardly any had ever heard of before—so much so that fans were clamoring for CDs at the souvenir stand. Bramhall's current sound is a long way from his Austin/Arc Angels roots, but his passion is still strong. His guitar and drummer Abe Laboriel Jr.'s work combined for a swirling, dizzying blend of attitude and grace. You'll hear more from him; nothing this good can be overlooked for long.
BOULDER DAILY CAMERA
Laurence Washington
October 4, 1996
Ndegeocello, who wore sunglasses during most of the gig, told the enthusiastic audience she was disappointed that R&B radio stations didn't play her music enough. The singer had the packed house jumping with her mix of funk, soul and jazz. Ndegeocello's hip-hop songs were infused with social, racial and religious commentary. The crowd ate it up.
OREGONIAN
Melanie McFarland
October 4, 1996
There was far more passion than peace going on at La Luna on Wednesday night, and that suited Meshell Ndegeocello's audience just fine.
Passion gave depth to her rich lyrics, which spilled out in syncopated street poetry to the heart-pumping jazz rhythms that accompanied her. Passion vibrated in her soulful bass solos, which had fans shouting and cheering with the power and faith of a gospel revival.
And passion stirred in the powerful voice of Ndegeocello's female backup vocalist, who broke free of her background role to make her voice sail to the rafters in rapture. The aftershock from these solos almost brought the packed house to its knees.
Seducing with ambiguously directed love songs, spiritual discusion and social commentary, Ndegeocello spoke and sang in a voice richer than chocolate. The concert was nearly flawless—save for its incredibly late start time.
A number of intriguing opening acts had been lined up, including former Prince and the Revolution members Wendy and Lisa, who were to join Doyle Bramhall II as the opening act. The women canceled and were replaced by Super 8. Then the remaining acts bowed out as well, leaving Ndegeocello to carry the show on her own.
The concert was scheduled to begin at 9 p.m., but Ndegeocello came on a few minutes shy of 10:30. By then, folks were impatient—regardless of the D.J. spinning hip-hop and house tunes to calm the masses.
But most agreed her performance—which clocked in at more than 90 minutes and amounted to 5 percent conversation, 95 percent perspiration—was well worth the inconvenience.
Backed by a tight, talented band that heated up her complex compositions, Ndegeocello was announced by a hot solo pounded out on conga drums. She opened with a fierce version of "Step Into the Projects" from her debut Plantation Lullabies.
The songlist evenly mixed older material with tunes from her latest release Peace Beyond Passion, which flavored the concert with social commentary at one moment and spirituality the next, as the songs flowed by virtually uninterrupted.
The songs that explored her questions on spirituality elicited an interesting response from the audience: When hands waved in the air during "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart" and an extended, funkified version of "God Shiva," you'd have thought Ndegeocello was in church. Indeed, the singer had the aura of an androgynous saint presiding over a congregation of mixed ethnicity and sexuality.
The power of Ndegeocello's performance also took folks back to the days when music inspired wild exercises in musician idolatry; there was at least one audible request for a sample of the singer's sweat. Fans screamed out declarations of love and devotion throughtout the performance.
Ndegeocello tapped into the wealth of talent in her accompanying band, allowing every member to shine with solos.
Versions of "The Way" and "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" were pumped up with hot improvisation on guitar and vocals.
The best treat, however, was when Ndegeocello showed off her versatility by turning out sweat-inducing solos on bass or massaged the keyboards.
All said and done, The concert could be summed up in Ndegeocello's encore: We were digging her like an old soul record. And we couldn't wait for her to spin it one more time.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Thor Christensen
September 26, 1996
So far in her young career, Meshell Ndegeocello is better known as "that black lesbian singer with the shaved head and the weird name" than she is for any of her songs.
Which is a shame. Ms. Ndegeocello might seem a bit unusual, but her passionate funk is universal, as she showed in concert Wednesday night at Caravan of Dreams.
Ms. Ndegeocello—whose name is Swahili for "free like a bird" and is pronounced "N-day-gay-O-chello"—plays '70s-styled funk with a twist. Instead of simply miming George Clinton or James Brown, she spent much of her two-hour show pushing the boundaries of R&B.
Though she sang part of the time, she also often half-rapped and half-talked like Lou Reed by way of Gil Scott Heron and injected the feel of caustic Beat poetry into tunes such as "Deuteronomy: Niggerman." As you might have guessed from that title, Ms. Ndegeocello doesn't traffic in vapid party-funk. She spent most of the show asking bold questions and demanding answers.
At one point, she improvised a poem about racist advertising, and in "Leviticus: Faggot," she described a gay man being harassed by his parents and attacked by homophobes. Yet the show wasn't some overbearing lesson in political correctness.
She wasn't afraid to show her wicked sense of humor, whether she was singing her Grammy-nominated tune "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" or instructing men in the crowd on what it takes to please a woman.
Ms. Ndegeocello did seem uptight at times: "Forgive us, but we're not used to playing sit-down gigs like this... I feel like I'm playing the lounge at the Hyatt Hotel," she said. Later, she complained to the crew for lighting the stage too brightly and ruining her "mood."
But the mood quickly turned jubilant whenever she and her eight-piece band locked into a groove and rode it into uncharted waters. Guitarist Allen Cato shook up the set with his forays into jazz-metal, while keyboardist Federico Gonzalez Peña peppered the funk stew with everything from quiet, echo-laden passages to rowdy Jan Hammer-like synth-pounding. Meanwhile, background vocalists Biti Strauchn and Arif St. Michaels helped beef up Ms. Ndegeocello's limited voice with their sweet soul singing.
And even though Ms. Ndegeocello's bass playing was tepid (second bassist Michael Neal did most of the work), it barely mattered. As she reminded us with slow and wonderfully sultry numbers such as "Mary Magdalene" and Bill Withers' "Who Is He and What is He to You," there's far more to funk than maniacal bass-thumping.
AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Michael Point
September 26, 1996
Meshell Ndegeocello's slow-burning but soul-satisfying show Tuesday at Liberty Lunch was almost as wide-ranging as the singer's audience. Hip-hop dance fans, gay couples and jazz fans mixed with the rock curious and even a John Mellencamp follower or two to create a crowd which effectively mirrored Ndegeocello's marvelously malleable musical approach. Before it was over all components of her rapidly-expanding fan base had memorable musical moments to take home as sonic souvenirs of her performance.
The depth and diversity of Ndegeocello's sound, both in the socially relevant subject matter of her songs and the delicious gumbo variations of the music itself, is unlike anything on the contemporary scene. Like Spearhead leader Michael Franti, the closest comparison, Ndegeocello is as unflinchingly honest and direct with her songs as she is democratic in her musical accompaniment.
Ndegeocello's approach doesn't so much get in your face as it sneaks into your mind. The self-aggrandizement of macho male rappers, more often a symptom of insecurity than pride, is absent. Yet she still delivers her vocals with a forceful insistence that carries the visceral authenticity of rap.
She is confident with her confrontational attitude. She sees things that are wrong and addresses them without concern for the reaction. For all the controversy surrounding Ndegeocello's songs—you just can't title something "Leviticus: Faggot" and not ruffle a few feathers—there is no apparent attempt to sensationalize her material to attract attention. Her enlightened streetwise opinions, whether regarding racism, sexuality, religion, or basic human interactions, pull no punches but they are invariably accurate and insightful.
Ndegeocello opened the show playing keyboards in front of a seven-piece band anchored by jazz drummer Gene Lake. The first segment, a simmering, jazz-flavored groove, set the mood in a modernized Marvin Gaye mode, building musical momentum while Ndegeocello sang/chanted sharp-edged social observations. When she finally strapped on her bass and ripped through a stunning solo she received an ovation worthy of any rock guitar hero. It was well deserved, as her muscular musicality, inherently funky but filled with unlikely jazz and rock flourishes, amply demonstrated the full extent of her influences and expertise.
The band was pushed to the limit to accommodate the multiple musical elements of Ndegeocello's genre-bending approach but consistently kept in step with her agile artistry. Keyboardist Federico Gonzalez Peña, who was called upon to replicate the Joshua Redman sax lines on her recordings, as well as to intersperse jazzy piano lines, was especially impressive. Allen Cato contributed intermittent guitar explosions to pump up the energy level but was equally effective nurturing the always-present funk groove that served as the music's foundation.
Ndegeocello's potential is seemingly limitless since she has so totally mastered such a wide array of musical approaches. But the part of her talents already realized is so stunning in its originality that many would be happy to see her just continue on her present course. The bet here is she won't and that her music will only spiral higher and higher while maintaining its ability to communicate soul-to-soul with all who come under its influence.
COSMIK DEBRIS
Steve Marshall
September 1996
Meshell Ndegeocello turned in a brief, but impressive 30 minute opening set. Mixing funk with jazz, rhythm & blues, and a bit of rap, her songs were provocative, and on occasion, spiritual at the same time. She had a tight band of musicians onstage with her, and performed songs from both of her CDs. The guitar work was particularly impressive on several songs, especially on her hit "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" and "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart" from her latest CD. While she was an unlikely candidate to be an opening act for a group like The Who, she put on a good performance.
WASHINGTON POST
Mike Joyce
August 27, 1996
Lenny Kravitz even coaxed Meshell Ndegeocello, who was also on the bill, to play bass while he ran into the crowd to lead a thunderous sing-along of "Let Love Rule."
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Tom Moon
August 26, 1996
After a few rousing selections from Cuban American Nil Lara's debut on the second stage, he was joined by bassist Meshell Ndegeocello for "Baro," which grew from a simple phrase into a mesmerizing multicultural testimony.
Ndegeocello's own set, at sundown, covered the funk end of the horizon. Although she's still not playing enough bass, she attacked a too brief set of material from her first two albums with infectious energy, and embellished her own chants with references to classic R&B—at one point, her tightly wound band broke into a sultry treatment of Prince's "Sexy MF."
HARTFORD COURANT
Roger Catlin
August 18, 1996
A nice soul groove began cooking in the set of Meshell Ndegeocello, who conjures up the cool, committed sound of Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye with plainspoken raps that challenge the notion of religion and treatment of others. Ndegeocello, who dressed a bit like TV's Urkel, also showed her prowess on the bass in the short set.
WORCESTER TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
Roberta Fusaro
August 16, 1996
One of the coolest musical surprises on an otherwise sticky evening was Meshell Ndegeocello's booming, but way too-short, half-hour turn. Ndegeocello's H.O.R.D.E. set boasted the best sound mix of the night—all the better to hear the artist's slap bass-playing in those nasty funk grooves your mom warned would get you in trouble. The set included "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart" and "Leviticus: Faggot," both tracks off her latest CD, Peace Beyond Passion.
BOSTON GLOBE
Steve Morse
August 16, 1996
Located literally in the woods, the politically aware, cool-funk, cool-cat singer Meshell Ndegeocello. "Thank you for joining us. We're like the underdogs," she said, throwing a touch of alienation into the generally utopian scene, even as she totally captivated with her music.
THE VOICE
Dionne St. Hill
August 13, 1996
It's a well known fact that Meshell Ndegeocello is the undisputed, funkiest, heavyweight champion of the world.
When the Washington-born soulful rocker hit the stage at London's Subterania I decided to come out of my short-lived retirement and make an appearance. Meshell licked the strings of her huge bass guitar and there was no doubt she gave a masterful performance.
She wowed the capacity crowd with a free-rein set, proving that the bassist enjoys performing as much as we enjoyed her.
This was no studio artist clone wandering into a venue in London, England, smiling, miming and struggling to keep up with their own backing tracks. Meshell would also return home with a big fat cheque.
But she earned it. When she shouted, "Remember back in the day when everyone was Black and conscious?," you knew where she was coming from.
Dynamic, sexy and in control, she rocked the crowd with a powerful set that continued hit after hit and included favourites from the debut album Plantation Lullabies such as "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night.)"
Despite a no-show from ex-Living Colour front man and Black Rock Coalition founder Vernon Reid, there was simply nothing else to be disappointed by.
For Meshell each song is an opportunity to jam and find that riff, that chord, that sequence that you'll never find again. Her seven-piece band flowed with her—singers, percussionist, drummer, guitarist... a perfect musical union.
When "Stay"—a arguably the sexiest song on Peace Beyond Passion—floated through the packed venue, you knew there really was a place called Utopia. Sophisticated, sensual, raw and real, this is the stuff my orgasms are made of. More, more, more...
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
Rosalind Cummings-Yeates
August 8, 1996
With an audience crammed into every corner of a sweltering Park West and hanging on every note, Meshell Ndegeocello coolly commanded the crowd's attention Tuesday night with drawled, half-spoken words and funk-filled tunes that recalled the best of '70s soul.
Humbly walking onstage in a loose black tunic and glasses, Ndegeocello apologized for the 45-minute wait and reminded the crowd why it would be well worth it. Opening with the "quiet storm" favorite "Outside Your Door" from her first album, Plantation Lullabies, she tumbled out the lyrics like a sexy nursery rhyme. She quickly rolled into "The Way" and "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart," from her current album, Peace Beyond Passion. The songs, which called for passionate vocals, showcased her versatile style and talent.
Barely catching her breath, Ndegeocello launched into her R&B hit from last year, "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)," performed rapid-fire, like a smart-mouthed teen. A heavy '70s funk groove permeated the whole show, as she and her band dived into heavy bass and guitar licks, recalling the Ohio Players and Parliament-Funkadelic.
Pointing out how prejudice and narrow thinking haven't really changed much, she connected past events to a current move toward intolerance in the United States. "What year was it that Muhammad Ali won the gold medal?" she asked, referring to the re-presentation of a gold medal to Ali at the Atlanta Olympics. "1960, and he came home and still couldn't drink out of the water fountain. What year is it?"
Ndegeocello slammed into "Leviticus: Faggot," her controversial song about gay acceptance: "Can't you see/ I'm no different from you/ treat me/ like you would treat yourself." Declaring herself black and not alternative, Ndegeocello proved that she can't be pigeonholed at any level. She plays instruments, she sings, she raps, addressing everything from romantic love, to sexual politics, to religion, all with a funky beat.
ECHOES
Rick Jordan
August 3, 1996
It was a shame, really, that Vernon Reid cancelled his support set. With it, of course, went any possibility of an improvised bass jam between the ex-Living Colour frontsman and former Black Rock Coalitionist Meshell, two like-minded individuals who've done much to reclaim the roots of rock.
Not that disappointment featured highly on the bill. A man deeply set in the old school R&B tradition, stand-in Thomas Ribeiro, opened the procedings with a brief but passionate performance. His My Love Ain't That Kind single with its earthy vocals achieved a likeable kind of Steely Dan funkiness, but will inevitably invite Kravitz comparisons. Then, after an impatient wait watching the stage-crew faffing about, Meshell's percussionist ambled on and with a flurry of hands began a rhythmic onslaught that would last nearly 2 hours.
When she first came to attention in '93 with Plantation Lullabies, an album chocka with sensual lyrics and fluid musicianship, Meshell was by some unimaginatively touted as a female equivalent to Prince. (Erm, let's see—black, multi-instrumentalist and petite.) It has to be said that her live performance does recall him at his unbridled funkiest, though her go-go days no doubt contribute to this. She commands a forceful stage presence, empowered by a towering bass guitar and flanked either side by her seven-piece band and backing singers. Songs like If That's Your Boyfriend were stretched out into extended jams, taut with multi-rhythmic textures, the hypnotising bass underlining fervant hammer-like drum motifs and snatches of spaced-out fusion piano. Consummate muso that she is, she cast strands of soul classics—Curtis's Pusherman, Papa Was A Rolling Stone and a bit of Sly Stone for good measure—around songs from her first album and its long-awaited follow-up Peace Beyond Passion.
With its beat poetry inflections, Meshell's deep melodious voice twisted Bill Withers' Who Is He And What Is He To You? into a fucked-up, funked up sexual overture, taking in spiritual truth-seeking on God Shiva and tough-edged political comment with Deuteronomy: Niggerman; raising yelps from the capicity crowd when she sang 'Remember back in the day, when everyone was black and conscious?' on I'm Diggin' You Like An Old Soul Record. There was room for ballads: Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart and Outside Your Door created a sublime space for the lyrics to flow, and the crowd didn't get too restless either. A couple of able backing singers provided the range around Meshell, and we were treated to some sweet soul scatting from guitarist Allen Cato. Live Meshell has the raw energy of hip hop without the programming, the for-the-moment rush of mainstream rock, yet the occasional Van Halen like squeals and orgasmic shrieks of guitar never descend into self-indulgence or self parody. 'Thank you for letting me be myself... it's the only thing I can do' she breathed at the end.
Not at all.
TORONTO STAR
Ira Band
August 2, 1996
Exotic, yet somehow familiar, challenging yet inviting, Meshell Ndegeocello massaged the senses of 600 fans last night at The Opera House with a selection of robustly executed jazzed-up funk songs.
Backed by a dynamic five-member band and two additional singers, the Berlin-born, New York-based singer/songwriter/musician arrived on stage close to the witching hour and proceeded to hypnotize the highly receptive crowd with a dazzlingly polyrhythmic musical journey.
Performing songs from her two albums, Plantation Lullabies and the more recent Peace Beyond Passion, she wove tales that dealt strongly with socio-political upheaval and romantic obsessions.
Her last name translates to "free like a bird" in Swahili.
This may have explained the ease with which she flew through so many musical styles, swooping through florid jazz and pop tunes that were wrapped around Afro hip-beats and street rap.
Underscoring such songs as "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" and "Deuteronomy: Niggerman," was Ndegeocello's impressive vocal range.
On some of the more traditionally melodic numbers, her voice was a rich, husky contralto coo.
On many of the spoken word tracks, she emerged not so much a trendy urban rapper as a slightly funkier version of poet/novelist Maya Angelou.
MONTREAL GAZETTE
Ilana Kronick
July 31, 1996
Listening to the sounds of Meshell Ndegeocello's rich, soulful testament is an awfully exhilarating experience.
The sheer energy of her unmistakable sultry drawl spiritually marching across thickly funked-up jazz rhythms is enough to seduce anyone into deep inner reflection.
And that's before meeting the heaven-bound sister of soul. In her presence, that impact is doubled.
Because once you see Ndegeocello on stage, you witness the truthfulness behind her words as every brute sentiment, provocative statement and deeply held conviction turns from her glossy religious lyrics, to living, breathing pieces of her mind.
Last night's sold-out Cabaret performance offered that insight with gorgeous poetic grace and swift, professional style.
Standing no more than 5-foot-2, the unembellished, bald black beauty delivered her pious messages and womanly passages with distinct feminist strength and smooth, soulful musicality.
Accompanied by a sweet crew of players and two grooving backup singers, Ndegeocello and her band took us through the cool tracks of her new album, Peace Beyond Passion.
From the holy beats of "The Way," to the smooth rap intricacies of the biblically inspired "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart," Ndegeocello glowed with inner power: "Free my heart so my soul may fly/ Free my mind of my worldly wants and desires/ I look towards heaven with my arms open wide/ Take my hand, come and take my hand." She couldn't have exuded more reverence.
Club hit "If That's Your Boyfriend," was cheerfully received as it metamorphosed into a heavy R&B rendition of Prince's "Sexy MF."
On several occasions, the singer picked up the bass—her main musical accoutrement, slapping away with the jazzy guitar and keys, and masterfully grooving to the tribal beats of bongos, congas, cow bells, shakers and incredible drumming.
As she stunned and mesmerized the adoring crowd, she spread both her soulful sounds and her soul-searching vision.
LONDON TIMES
Alan Jackson
July 29, 1996
Maverick, the record label founded four years ago by Madonna, already has one artist who doubtless causes executives at other record companies to gnash their teeth with envy: Alanis Morissette, with her 14 million-plus sales of the album Jagged Little Pill.
But, as a discoverer of new talent, Madonna has even more reason for pride. Meshell Ndegeocello, another signing, may be an unknown commodity to most record-buyers, but her work is every bit as startling as that of the precocious Morissette.
Plantation Lullabies, her 1993 debut, fused elements of jazz, hip hop, rap and soul with total confidence, promising much for the future. Happily, Peace Beyond Passion, her recent follow-up, more than lived up to such expectations. By turns sensual, angry, questioning and provocative, Ndegeocello's 12 new tracks deal head-on with familiar issues of racial and sexual identity, but with a grace and freshness of phrase that is beyond most other writers tilling the same soil.
A capacity crowd had assembled at Subterania for what was only the singer's second British show, and they were not disappointed. This compact, crop-haired woman in heavy-rimmed spectacles may have been dwarfed physically by her five players and backing vocalist, but force of personality made her seem mighty. She favours urgently conversational raps leading into tracks powered by 1970s-style funk, and If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night), from the first LP, and Deuteronomy: Niggerman from it's successor, proved how powerful this formula can be.
But Ndegeocello also has the ability to evoke a mood of exquisite tenderness or need. Mary Magdalene, perhaps the best track on Peace Beyond Passion, creates an atmosphere of sexual tension completely beyond the reach of most records from the modern bedroom-soul genre. It was this ability both to create moods and raise issues which made Ndegeocello's performance here so compelling. She deserves a sales tally to match, if not exceed Morissette's.
THE INDEPENDENT
Nicholas Barber
July 28, 1996
With only the sleeve photos of Meshell Ndegeocello on her new album, Peace Beyond Passion, to go on, I was quite surprised that she was wearing any clothes at all at the London Forum on Wednesday, and I was particularly surprised that those sober garments included a scarf wound round her neck and a pair of bookish black-rimmed glasses. True, the iconoclastic poetry she sang and rapped marks her down as an
unusually intelligent pop person, but her music is sensual, too: a dramatic, unruly funk with Isaac Hayes overtones. Ndegeocello is on
Madonna's label, Maverick, whose biggest triumph is Alanis Morissette, so maybe her boss likes to sign up kindred spirits: physically small, multi-talented, multi-syllabic women with a grudge against the Church.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Robert Hilburn
July 20, 1996
The most gripping moments, however, were supplied by singer-songwriter Meshell degéOcello, who was introduced by a pregnant Madonna, whose bulge was partially hidden by a leather jacket.
degéOcello, whose new Peace Beyond Passion album is a captivating reflection on racism and sexism in '90s America, reached back to the '60s herself for "Easy to Be Hard," a song from "Hair" that was turned into such a sterile pop hit by Three Dog Night two decades ago.
But degéOcello, who moves effortlessly between rap and soulful R&B singing, recast the song with such passion and style that it became a fresh expression of the isolation and pain created by social indifference.
She then followed with an even more electrifying number of her own, "Leviticus: Faggot," an attack on bigotry and intolerance both insightful and brave.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Richard Cromelin
June 20, 1996
Meshell Ndegeocello has the outsider angle covered: She's a woman, she's black, she's bisexual and, on her new album anyway, she's scathingly anti-Christian.
Her anger about the way racial, sexual and philosophical aliens are treated is the engine that drives this multifaceted musician's remarkable music.
She hinted at her potential with her two career-establishing hits, "I'm Diggin' You (Like an Old Soul Record)" and "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)," from her 1993 debut album, Plantation Lullabies, and at the Whiskey on Tuesday Ndegeocello wrapped up a brief club tour with a show that soared with confidence and ambition.
In the show and on her album Peace Beyond Passion, which comes out next week, Ndegeocello aspires to embrace the essence of what it's like to live as a target, to be forced to battle for self-respect and individuality. Accordingly, she details not only the indignities, but also the profundity of the love that she must find in order to survive them.
This dichotomy gives her music an expansive range, and at the Whiskey she swung from accusation to flirtation with quick shifts of musical gears. She was sensuous and erotic as she mounted the monumental seduction of "Stay," complete with a list of the old soul records that could serve as a soundtrack. When she addressed Mary Magdalene, it was with a proposal of marriage.
Her controversial current single "Leviticus: Faggot" received an inspired performance. During the encore version of the first album's "Shoot'n Up and Gett'n High," she offered a report on racial conditions that was anything but upbeat, criticizing not only the oppression by whites but also the complacency and materialism of some blacks.
Ndegeocello is also unsparing in her assessment of Christianity. Well, she does spare the Founder, instead attacking his followers for using his words to condemn and enslave. In this context, the strong gospel component of her music assumed an ironic edge.
Along with gospel, Ndegeocello stirs up strong currents of jazz, funk and R&B. She might have the presence and image of a cutting-edge artist, but her musical direction is primarily retrospective, grounded in the classic styles she celebrated in that first hit.
She and her seven musicians executed it with flair Tuesday, evoking everyone from Prince to Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye to the Temptations. Without the strings and horns that warm and deepen the music on the new album, this was a more percussive, rhythm-driven performance, with a spiky but fluid attack.
Technical problems caused a few tentative moments, but nothing that a few political zingers or gorgeous reveries didn't quickly cover.
PHILADELPHIA CITYPAPER
Margit Detweiler
June 13-20, 1996
Waving a wand of smoky incense over her audience, Meshell Ndegeocello set the mood at the TLA Saturday night.
"Be thankful for each breath that you breathe," Ndegeocello cooed huskily into the microphone.
I needed stimulation. I got it Saturday night.
The air conditioning might have been on full blast at the TLA, but you couldn't escape the heat in the room. Entwined couples — black, white, straight, gay — swayed under the deep red glow of the lights from the stage. Forcefully compact Meshell Ndegeocello, wearing a white tank and a black shirt that fell about her shoulders, repeatedly asked to bring the lights down as she performed new material.
"Bring it down, bring it down, bring it down."
Pumping slick soul into "The Way," a multi-layered groove, Ndegeocello offered a new look at Jesus: "They say you're the way, the light/ The light is so blinding/ Your followers condemn me, your words used to enslave me," setting the tone for a politically charged evening of thick funk, prophetic rap and steamy romance, blurring boundaries of race, music and sexuality.
The first single from her new album, Peace Beyond Passion, is "Leviticus: Faggot," a song Ndegeocello said was unlikely to be snatched up by the radio stations. It was inspired by an incident in which the singer was mistaken for a gay man and punched in the face.
"It's about me and a hundred other people I know," she said. Most of the material on the album has a warm, '70s-era Stevie Wonder style, slicker than 1994's Plantation Lullabies. While the show was a beefy melange of percussion and stirring sing-speak from Ndegeocello, Peace Beyond Passion verges on highly-produced smooth jazz.
Saturday night she melded new songs into old, segueing from the passionate, Bible-quoting "Deuteronomy: Niggerman" into the unreal rhythm of the '94 hit, "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)." She transformed Bill Withers'"Who Is He and What Is He To You" into surly ultra-funk.
Like a chilled-out groove conductor she directed her band to stick with a phrase, "Let's just stay here for a while and groove. Come on work with me, make it nice... I'm black. I like that downbeat."
Just don't call her alternative. She may be playing this year's Horde Festival, but Ndegeocello, a name which means 'free like a bird' in Swahili, doesn't fit into any particular niche.
She told the audience later that evening not to let radio tell you what to listen to.
"Jimi Hendrix was tormented until his death that he didn't have a larger black audience. I ain't goin' out like that."
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Tom Moon
June 10, 1996
When Meshell Ndegeocello arrived in 1993, she was a blast of fresh air: an assertive rapper and singer who appreciated old soul records, bragged about her sexual exploits and played mean bass.
Now, old soul is back in fashion, making Ndegeocello seem less hip and her musical shortcomings more apparent.
Saturday at the sold-out Theatre of Living Arts, she played polite rhythm-and-blues that was long on hip-hop attitude, but dismally short on musicality.
Playing material from her second album, Peace Beyond Passion, due out June 25, Ndegeocello strutted around in a white tank top and did everything but play bass. She pawed the keyboard as though it were a percussion instrument.
She ordered musicians in her backing band to play certain styles, and chastised them if they were slow to comply. She delivered provocative verses in a raplike monotone, and leaned on backing vocalists to get through her hit "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" and others.
That's the big problem: Ndegeocello is not an arresting singer. Her chanted refrains beg for Aretha Franklin-style vocal ad-libs, but Saturday, she didn't even try. Instead, she reiterated familiar lines, rarely attempting a blue note or improvisation.
This prevented her music from kicking into high gear: The lyrics were sassy and salacious, but they never got the vocal embellishment that would make them believable.
At least the old stuff had a rhythmic edge. The nondescript Peace Beyond Passion is marked by wandering, mid-tempo vamps and pained, soul-searching lyrics. It's a righteous posture aimed at the Quiet Storm crowd. While some songs—notably "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart"—express noble sentiments in tuneful ways, just as many (including the single, "Leviticus: Faggot") treat the groove as an afterthought, and seem bent on simply generating controversy.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Greg Kot
June 13, 1996
Meshell Ndegeocello does not flinch from the trouble she sees. Even as she makes splended, soul-splashed, booty-bumping music that evokes the last great Motown era in the early '70s, the diminutive singer with the close-cropped hair wrestles out loud with delicate matters of the heart: homosexuality, racism and faith (or the lack of it) in God and in one's self.
At her performance at the Double Door on Monday, Ndegeocello was a charismatic performer with a sharp five-piece band and two backup singers that blended gloss and grit, funk and jazz fusion. Ndegeocello doesn't have extraordinary vocal range, but her reedy voice has a pliant pleading quality when she sings, and a commanding, sit-up-and-listen authority when she raps.
In her love songs, she comes across as the aggressor, albeit in the most tender fashion, the leonine suitor who pleads and seduces. It's a neat trick, turning the tables on the current bevy of new-jack R&B singers who reduce their female conquests to just one more fast-food morsel. Unfortunately, some of Ndegeocello's ballads have a washed out, jazz-lite quality that meanders rather than engages.
She's at her best playing it frisky, as she did in reprising her 1993 hit "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" or in delving into the sensual, explicitly nostalgic summer groove of "I'm Diggin' You (Like An Old Soul Record)."
Where the 27-year-old Maryland native rises above the current crop of neo-soul performers is in her willingness to confront what it means to be black, female and sexually open-minded in a close-minded society. Like Marvin Gaye in the 1970s, she surveys the world and in anguish wonders, "What's goin' on?" Like Gaye's masterpiece album of the same name, Ndegeocello pits her reedy voice against a conversational yet funky bass line on her forthcoming album, Peace Beyond Passion.
Gaye's foil was the masterful Motown bassist James Jamerson. On Peace Beyond Passion, Ndegeocello does her own bass playing, and it's the single most striking musical aspect of the record. But she rarely picked up the instrument at the Double Door. Instead, she devoted her energies to orchestrating the music and framing her often complex, spiritually searching lyrics with impassioned monologues.
Ndegeocello projected a mixture of righteous militance, racial pride and wounded wisdom. Her brilliant "Leviticus: Faggot" addresses an issue that is rarely broached in pop music, yet the song has been released as a single by Ndegeocello's record company, as if challenging radio programmers to play it. They should.
As a piece of music, it's a snaky funk number reminiscent of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition." Lyrically, it describes the harrowing experience of a boy coming to grips with his own sexuality in the face of monstrous intolerance. Its use of a spiteful epithet is shocking, but the song—like Ndegeocello herself—crackles with spiritual longing, a plea that demands something of it's audience beyond mere revelry.
WASHINGTON POST
Bobby Hill
June 10, 1996
In the three years since the success of D.C. native Meshell Ndegeocello's debut recording, the musician-songwriter has weathered a reportedly bitter restructuring of her band and management. But the now New York-based artist still knows where her roots are, as she proved Friday night by treating an enthusiastic, capacity hometown crowd at the Bayou to a preview of works from her soon-to-be-released Peace Beyond Passion. When Ndegeocello voiced the lyric "Set you free in a valley of fruits, both sweet and sour," she unwittingly described the evening's mixed blessings. The performance by the five-piece ensemble (bass, guitar, drums, percussion and keyboard plus backing vocals) was clearly a work in progress, lacking the tightness and assuredness of a more mature tour band. This was particularly evident on the up-tempo pieces "Step In to the Project" and "If That's Your Boyfriend He Wasn't Last Night," which often began and ended hesitantly. On more than one occasion, sections were extended to allow band members time to come in on cue.
Ndegeocello's energetic urgings notwithstanding, this was less about "party" and more about "mood," and it was the slow-burning ballad and laid-back funk that had the crowd mesmerized. "Who Is He and What Is He to You," which could easily serve as a response to "Boyfriend," benefited greatly from the droning funk backbeat provided by drummer Gene Lake and bassist Funky Ned, of Rare Essence.
In addition to crowd favorites such as "Outside Your Door" and "Call Me," Ndegeocello unveiled a number of ballads, the best of which was "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart," a song about loneliness. Its extended opening monologue speaks of how the games of our reckless youth have now dissolved into hoping that love can be found in a chance meeting at the fruit section of the local supermarket. Ndegeocello's on-point references to how folks used to act and dress (she jokingly remembered the sweater shirts that guys used to wear, the ones with the fake leather sleeves) continuously produced waves of hearty "amens" and "preach, sister" from the audience. By the time she moved from her speaking voice to her singing voice, the song's more poignant refrain of finding the right one and only one to settle down with, seemed to blanket the audience with a reverent hush. Amen, indeed.
NEW YORK TIMES
Jon Pareles
June 8, 1996
Desire and divinity are close companions in the songs of Meshell Ndegeocello, and slinky funk grooves are never far away. Ms. Ndegeocello introduced songs from her next album, Peace Beyond Passion, due out on June 25, on Tuesday night, and in them she has focused on what she does best: mixing high-minded ideas and lowdown rhythms. She advocates black pride and an end to homophobia; she also thinks about stealing boyfriends, flirting on the subway and romance with Mary Magdalene. With ingenious gender ambiguity, she confronts a lover to ask, "Who is he and what is he to you?"
Ms. Ndegeocello's songs are mini-suites that savor the variety of 1970's funk: from diving P-Funk basslines to the choppy syncopations of Sly Stone, from the suave vamps of Marvin Gaye to the chattering keyboards of Stevie Wonder. They lope along, suddenly shift to floating pop-jazz, then snap back into undulating funk. Ms. Ndegeocello raps in a low, confident tone, but when she's begging, "Ooh baby, c'mon just let me," her singing voice becomes both sensual and vulnerable.
Her finale was her new single, "Leviticus: Faggot," in which a gay teen-ager faces his father's anger, his mother's prayers that he'll change, and the cruelty of street life. As it shifted from rough funk to near-gospel, the song moved from pain to redemption, as Ms. Ndegeocello pleaded, "Let me rise above my fear."
ATLANTA JOURNAL & CONSTITUTION
Steve Dollar
May 15, 1995
Though the end result was a stellar show, Saturday night Meshell Ndegeocello struggled through awful feedback during "Call Me," and the crowd had to repeatedly shout "Turn it up" before the sound technician raised the volume on her bass.
FUNKJAZZ KAFÉ JOURNAL
May 12, 1995
The big suprise came during the second set. Entering from the door directly on the stage was Meshell Ndegeocello with bass guitar and all. What a sight! She did impromptu versions of a few of her cuts with The Chronicle, it was like MTV "Unplugged" but with a FunkJazz flavor to it. Tight! Tight! Tight!
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Michael Corcoran
March 1, 1995
HOLLYWOOD—There's a fine line between self-assuredness and cockiness, and Meshell Ndegeocello obliterated it with an amazing concert at the House of Blues on Monday night.
Even in this spectacular $10 million recreation of a Mississippi juke joint, the diminutive singer with the close-cropped hair stood out as a singular talent. Possessing a swagger you wouldn't expect of an artist with only one album, she backed it up with a dazzling funk sound and moved from bass to keyboards to vocals with the ease of someone who was born to the task.
She addressed the crowd in an easy conversational tone, with her topics ranging from her favorite moment in Superfly (the bathtub scene) to Wednesday's Grammy Awards show.
"You see some people up there going, `I really appreciate this honor,' " the Washington D.C.-raised singer told the sellout crowd, mocking a demure aw-shucks pose. "Well, forget that! I'm nominated for four Grammys!" Then she strutted across the stage with her arms raised, as if she had just knocked out an adversary called obscurity.
You hear a lot about the five nominations given to Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Babyface and Bonnie Raitt, but the 28-year-old singer with the hard-to-pronounce name (it's "In-day-gay-o-chello") has crept up on the front-runners without much fanfare.
Ms. Ndegeocello's name is rarely lumped in with emerging strong female acts such as Ms. Crow and Melissa Etheridge. Yet she led her 10-piece band with benevolent authority Monday—so in control of her musical surroundings, it seemed fitting that she's signed to Maverick, the label co-owned by the fiercely independent Madonna.
In addition to her debut LP, Plantation Lullabies, which was nominated for R&B album of the year, Ms. Ndegeocello received Grammy nods in the R&B song and R&B female vocal categories for the rap-inflected hit "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" and in the pop vocal collaboration category for her duet with John Mellencamp on "Wild Night." Fueled by Ms. Ndegeocello's intense bass lines, the Van Morrison cover spent an incredible six months on the Billboard singles chart.
Ms. Ndegeocello said that the most exciting thing about Wednesday's Grammy Awards show (aside from the host of nominations) is that she will co-present an award with her hero, Curtis Mayfield. Like the creator of such message anthems as "People Get Ready" and "Freddie's Dead," Ms. Ndegeocello is a triple threat as a singer, musician and songwriter. Also like Mr. Mayfield, Ms. Ndegeocello infuses heavy doses of jazz, street beat, African rhythms and stark balladry into her brand of sophisti-funk.
As a student at Howard University, she played in various go-go bands, then discovered Jimi Hendrix through a school project. Those two influences—the funk and the fury—rang out at the House of Blues Monday and shook the ragged corrugated metal that encases the restaurant/ club with a rare authenticity of the soul.
The last name is not so hard to pronounce when you hear it a lot. And you will.
ROLLING STONE
Nilou Panahpour
October 20, 1994
Grade: B
Everyone has bad days, even the majestically cool Meshell Ndegeocello. The manic pace of this evening's concert mirrored Ndegeocello's disposition; her set vacillated from brooding ballads of love and social outrage to bombastic guitar riffs.
The backing band, Watermelon Philosophy, played Ndegeocello's retro funk-based tunes with clean precision and pulsing sensuous energy. As the band kicked into "Dred Loc," from her critically acclaimed debut album, Plantation Lullabies, all the couples in the crowd relaxed in each others' arms and rubbed their way into a slow dance. Indeed, her magnetic appeal and caramel voice kept everyone entwined. After the loose fun of "If That's Your Boyfriend," Ndegeocello launched into a spoken aside. "I don't even know why I do this anymore," she admitted. But the supportive audience kept her going. Having bared her soul, she about-faced into a rocked-out version of "Step Into the Projects."
Alas, Ndegeocello hardly picked up her Fender jazz bass all night. Although she's known for her fiercely chunky bass lines, she stuck to the keyboards. The few times she obliged the begging crowd, they reveled in her funky grooves. During "Shoot'n Up and Gett'n High," a potent song about oppression, all the elements came together in a glorious moment of musical improvisation: She rapped stinging lines like "The white man shall forever sleep with one eye open" and rolled into a medley covering the Temptations, Curtis Mayfield and, fittingly, Jimi Hendrix's "Manic Depression."
As a final declaration of the funk she was in, Ndegeocello disdainfully flung off her bass toward the end of the encore and darted offstage. By then, Meshell Ndegeocello's message was clear. As she declared earlier, "If Elvis is king, then who the fuck is James Brown—God?"
NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS
Eunice Townsend
October 8, 1994
Meshell Ndegeocello, the sizzling young hip hop artist from Washington, D.C., recently set musical fire to the crowd at Irving Plaza on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Meshell performed to an integrated audience of African-Americans, Whites, lesbians and undecideds. The young devotees milled around, echoing their love for Meshell; most of them emulated her unostentatious style of dress and close-cropped haircut.
The heightened anticipation of the audience to hear and feel love messages poetized to a group of women who are rarely serenaded to in public was felt the moment you faded into the throng of Meshellites.
Her insignia, a red, thick circle containing a picture of a "Black pickaninny" with white circles around the eyes and mouth, a red line crossed
the face negating the image, was lowered on stage to the delight of the crowd acknowledging Meshell's imminent arrival. This symbol epitomizes her overall message that Black folks who have internalized, denigrating perspectives and spew White philosophies to the detriment of the revitalized African-American revolution are prohibited.
The petite doe-eyed explosion appeared on stage without the usual grandiose display expected of a feature attraction. She wore a plain, tight
T-shirt that made love to her while she sang, hugging her breasts with each sensual gyration. Her baggy jeans were minus the castrating designer label; this unpretentious attitude is prevalent among those who want the spotlight to illuminate their talent as opposed to their garb, which can be easily bought.
Meshell plunged right into verse, her velvety voice flooded the valley of thirsty devotees with songs that addressed atypical sexual preferences and issues of racism. Her singing was like eating hot grits: each song was hot and forced you to open your mouth and let your tongue taste the lyrics and recall where you came from.
Her debut CD, Plantation Lullabies, wails with songs like "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)", "Sweet Love," "Dred Loc," "Step Into the Projects" and "Outside Your Door." These are a few of the haunting, anything but "lullabies."
She attacked the electric piano and the electric bass guitar with the same voracity that she did in song. Her backup singers, Biti Strauchn and Arif St. Michael, ignited the explosion and fanned the flames.
Meshell is a keg of dynamite with the power to denonate docile, complacent, plantation and miseducated minds. She is young African-American-centered woman developing hip hop into an integral thread in the intricate weave of African-American musical art forms.
In the tradition of progressive Afro-centric, political, social artists, Meshell gave revered props to renowned international poet-activist Amiri Baraka during her concert, when she recited one of his great short poems: "If Elvis Is King, Who is James Brown—God?"
If you are down with the most progressive, political and passionately romantic cutting-edge hip hop consciousness, then dare to check out Meshell Ndegeocello's messages in her "revolutionary, heartbroken love songs." Once heard, they will profoundly affect you and hopefully will free your mind.
The "brokenhearted revolutionary love songster" has received two MTV Awards and was recently the featured guest on Warner Bros. Records'
"Cyber-Talk."
NEWSDAY
David Herndon
September 12, 1994
Nobody said it would be easy coming on strong as a bald, black, bisexual female soul musician with an awful lot of iconoclastic ideas about race, sex and culture. Meshell Ndegeocello's appearance Friday was proof of that; the edgy performance dramatized the struggle this extraordinary musician has taken on, the risks and benefits of fighting the hard fight. Not only was she engaged in a political and artistic struggle, but apparently a personal one as well.
Playing to a sympathetic audience, Ndegeocello arrived as a success story in the making. She was nominated for an MTV Video Award
for "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)," and her "Wild Night" duet with John Mellencamp is a big hit. Last year's album, Plantation Lullabies generated reams of press.
The show amply demonstrated that Ndegeocello is worthy of all the attention. Not only did she provide a hip-hopping, jazzy update on
politically conscious 70s soul, she turned the love-man cliches of 80s quiet storm inside out and flowed a river of rhetoric that would have
been the envy of any performance poet. But this was no exercise in deconstruction, it was mostly strong and sexy on its own terms, with fat
grooves, tasty keyboard-vocal-percussion accents and lively rhythm changeups.
"I'm Diggin' You (Like an Old Soul Record)" located her roots back in the day when everyone was black and conscious and down for the struggle and then stretched into a jam that (mis)quoted the Four Tops and the Temptations. A monster bassist, she quickly whipped into submission a Fender that threatened to dwarf her smallish frame.
"Step Into The Projects" and "Shoot'n Up and Gett'n High" exemplified Ndegeocello's propensity for uncommon points of view. The former began with a Frankenstein-size riff, and settled into a smooth tribute to the projects (where I found love). Expressing empathy for a black woman who elects escapism, the latter quoted "Purple Haze" and "Pusher Man" and prompted her to reflect on the sorry images served up in black movies like "Superfly" and "Cooley High", as well as goof on R. Kelly's onstage sexplay.
This was a woman with a lot on her mind. Early in the set she spoke about not knowing why she's doing this anymore, and expressed gratitude to the audience for making her feel like I'm doing something right. There was something tentative about the proceedings. For all the
sophisticated freestyle funk that was going down, this former Black Rock Coalition cohort hardly rocked all the way out; this former D.C. go-go
bandmember never fully dropped the bomb.
The encore promised a change, as the bassist and percussionist set up a big go-go beat to introduce "Soul on Ice," a song that calls out black men who fancy white women to the neglect of their sisters. Rapping about the consequences of racial self-hatred, Ndegeocello said I used to look in the mirror, I didn't like what I saw, and then spun that logic of negative imaging into a commentary on her career. "They said I didn't sell to this audience because I was gay, they said I moved to L.A. and lost my edge." She was bumming. You wanted to say, just go, girl, but instead, she threw down her bass in disgust and walked offstage.
TACOMA NEWS TRIBUNE
Stephanie Reader
September 6, 1994
Meshell Ndegeocello, the rocker best known for teaming up with John Mellencamp for the hit song "Wild Night," also could be seen wandering the Bumbersite on Monday.
But she must have wandered a little too long. Ndegeocello was 20 minutes late for her 7:30 p.m. show in the Arena, a searing performance that only a couple of thousand people saw. There was room for more, but it seemed everybody was watching Bonnie Raitt.
SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
Barry Walters
September 5, 1994
Like many of the greatest black musicians, Meshell Ndegeocello exudes an energy that's awesome, sometimes frightening and a little bit sad.
The D.C.-raised, New York-based multi-instrumentalist can do anything, sing, write, rap, arrange, play bass, piano and more, even duet with mega-mainstream rocker John Mellencamp on his hit remake of Van Morrison's "Wild Night", with a talent that both amazes and frustrates. The passion and anger that ignites some of her best work also reveals a self -destructiveness that places restraints on what would otherwise be limitless abilities. Within her is what it takes to be a major musical figure or another minor funk footnote.
During her sold-out Saturday night show at Bimbo's 365 Club, it was impossible to judge in what direction life might take Ndegeocello. When she took the stage, the crowd was vibrating with an anticipation you could feel. She and her band, the Watermelon Philosophy, began with the easy, mellow reggae of "Sweet Love," not the kind of hard funk you'd expect. Although the groove was laid-back, there was an intensity to the playing that couldn't be ignored. It was a brilliant strategy and it worked.
She continued with her most restrained, yet highly sensuous material, "Two Lonely Hearts (On the Subway)," "Call Me," "Dred Loc," all from Plantation Lullabies, her critically acclaimed debut on Madonna's Maverick record label. Although you could hear every instrument in her full, fully-live band, her low, soft-spoken voice was often swallowed in the mix. This was a real shame, since Ndegeocello possessesa compelling, distinctive vocal style, part rap, part pillow talk, part sing-song and all poetry. While most current female R&B singers nearly bust a lung in their efforts to climb the charts, this renegade conveys more emotion with a near-whisper. Even if she only sang, she'd impress.
Of course, she does much more. Ndegeocello began several songs snapping, crackling and popping serious riffs out of her bass as if it were Rice Krispies. Her dexterity and ear for deep, soulful melodies on that instrument recall Rick James, Larry Graham and Bootsy Collins, and her ability eclipses all but the most accomplished bassists. This was clear during her live rendition of her jovially nasty single, "If That's Your Boyfriend (It Wasn't Last Night)," which incorporated bits of the Pointer Sisters' "Chick on the Side" and Prince's "Sexy MF."
She left most of the instrumentation to the band, concentrating on vocals and modulating the dynamics of her players. Every once in a while, she turned to her keyboard for a little embellishment. And when the groove was really in place, she sat down to turn out an accomplished solo on the keys. Her rhythms straddle old-fashioned funk and hip-hop, but her approach to melody and harmony is pure jazz. The show peaked with another slow jam, "Outside Your Door." This featured a surprise scatting solo from another unconventional soul artist, Vinx.
The show lost momentum near the end, when Ndegeocello launched into her social commentary material, which points a lot of fingers, relies on the kind of racialstereotypes she rallies against and comes across stilted and unfairly judgmental. It's difficult to accept her jealous rage during "Soul on Ice," in which she attacks black men who prefer white women, particularly since she is a lesbian, one who is out but has so far directed all her love songs to men.
Like Public Enemy, Ndegeocello often comes across racist, even when she protests bigotry, because her anger takes control over her fine mind.
It was telling that she performed much of her show with her eyes closed. If she would open up, this renaissance woman could become as important as Prince or Sly Stone. As it is now, she may never be more than a cult heroine.
SAN JOSÉ MERCURY NEWS
Michael D. Clark
September 5, 1994
Meshell Ndegeocello has found the secret that record label executives have been searching for since marketing began—a sound that attracts an audience too wide to be targeted.
Her crossover appeal filled the velvet-draped walls of Bimbo's 365 club in San Francisco Saturday night as young bohemians and fashionably dressed yuppies came to seek some personal truth through her self-described "revolutionary love songs."
All should have come away with a deep respect for Ndegeocello (pronounced n-DAY-Gay-O-CHELLO), a singer/songwriter/arranger who blanketed the stage with a funk, jazz, hip-hop fusion that may be a little too complex for mainstream radio.
Introduced by opener D-Knowledge as a "poet, musician, Renaissance woman," Ndegeocello, 26, took the stage dressed in white, her closely shaved head and small, thin frame giving her an angelic look. The innocence quickly faded as she moved through the songs on her sexually and racially explicit debut disc, Plantation Lullabies.
Her music has a bare-bones quality that takes on a spiritual reverence. No one was running around in a mosh pit. Dances were individual reactions to the music. The movement on the carpet tried to keep time with what was happening onstage, but the crowd was always left a few paces behind.
"Two Lonely Hearts (on the Subway)" and "Call Me" started things off in a hip-hop vein that gave way to the not-so-subtle sexiness of "Dred Loc" and "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)." Just as the room was working up a little steam, Ndegeocello moved on to "Outside Your Door," a bluesy jazz rap about unrequited love.
Loud ovations were given for the controversial "Shoot'N Up and Gett'N High," which warns that "white men should forever sleep with one eye open," and "Soul on Ice," which offers O.J. Simpson as proof of what happens to black men who date white women. She finished the song by announcing that she hasn't been able to release it as a single because of its controversial nature.
"There are people who call me a racist," said Ndegeocello as the set wound down, "but racism is just an illusion. This is about the haves and have-nots." Throughout most of the 90-minute show, Ndegeocello maneuvered between the front mike, a keyboard and a bass guitar. Many of the songs were extended with solid percussion and guitar work by her six-man backup band, Watermelon Philosophy, which will make the once-complex tracks on the disc seem hollow by comparison to the live music. (Ndegeocello has gotten a lot of attention for her duet with John Mellencamp on Van Morrison's "Wild Night," but she chose to skip it Saturday.)
The encore was the '70s tome "I'm Diggin' You (Like an Old Soul Record)," which drove listeners out of their trance and back into the dance frame of mind as she sang her signature line, "Sit back, relax, listen to the eight-track..."
Ndegeocello left the stage as the band continued to play the "Diggin' " riff, and the life of this music went behind the curtain with her.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Robert Hilburn
August 30, 1994
Meshell Ndegeocello.
Get used to the name, because this woman in her late 20s is a valuable artist who radiates the independence and vision to be with us for a long time.
The name (pronounced N-day-gay-O-chello) means "free like a bird" in Swahili, which is appropriate because there's a sense of freedom and sweep in her music that was nothing short of intoxicating in its best moments in her show on Sunday at the Coach House.
The husky-voiced singer-songwriter, whose tour continues tonight at the Roxy in West Hollywood, may record for Madonna's label, but she brings to her work a musical vitality and range that is reminiscent of Prince.
She may be best known now for her duet with John Mellencamp on his hot recording of Van Morrison's "Wild Night" (which she didn't include in her set), but her own music is a mix of contemporary musical elements-from funk and soul to jazz and hip-hop-that is as boldly individual at times as her shaved head and animated manner.
But the heart of her art is her songs. She examines sexual and social politics on such a variety of levels that it's fascinating to watch them unfold.
"I'm Diggin' You (Just Like an Old Soul Record)," one of the standouts from her Plantation Lullabies album, is rich with subtext.
The song isn't just about a romantic interlude, but serves as a salute to the Afro-American solidarity of the '60s and early '70s: "Remember back to the day/ When everyone was black and conscious/ And down for the struggle."
There's even a touch of feminism as she alludes to the Four Tops hit "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I Got)"-a break from the references to ho's and bitches that dominate the current rap milieu.
"If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" is a tale about a romantic triangle in which all three parties are criticized. The first woman is chided for putting her faith in the wrong man. The man is dissed for being unfaithful, and the second woman is put down for not having enough respect for a sister to avoid the one-night fling.
Despite all these resources, Ndegeocello's performance on Sunday was uneven. In those times when she focused on the audience, she showed a winning confidence and presence.
At one point, she got so caught up in the vitality of the music that she leaped into the air and literally bounced across the stage. Yet she could be equally striking just standing at the microphone, reflecting on her own search for self-esteem and purpose.
Rather than maximize her impact as a frontwoman, however, Ndegeocello came across as the conductor of an experimental musical workshop. She often let the momentum of the show wander as she focused on her new six-piece band and two backup singers.
The suspicion is that Ndegeocello, who alternated between keyboards and bass, will assert more authority as a performer as the tour unfolds. Even if the show is still in an embryonic stage, it rests on a foundation of potential greatness.
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Cary Darling
August 30, 1994
"Go, girl!," someone in the audience screamed in the middle of Meshell Ndegeocello's electrifying set at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on Sunday night.
No doubt that enthused concert-goer was speaking for many in the crowd who seemed relieved to find that Ndegeocello—riding into Orange County on a wave of hype, hosannas and hip-hop/jazz heat—could indeed deliver the goods onstage. Her too-short, 70-minute set proved that her knockout debut album, Plantation Lullabies, is no fluke.
But things didn't start so wonderfully. At first, the diminutive woman seemed overwhelmed by sound problems (her keyboards were barely audible at the outset) and the sheer power of her expert eight-piece band, especially percussionist Daniel Sadownick and drummer Gene Lake. Unlike Prince or Madonna, to whom Ndegeocello has often been compared, she doesn't take control of the stage with a magnetic personality.
Yet as the show progressed, Ndegeocello loosened up and the seductive charms of her music—a striking blend of old school R&B, hip-hop and jazz sensibilities—came through. But she wasn't just content to replay the cool vibe of Lullabies; she and her band roughed up the songs' edges, amping up the funk level until the walls of the Coach House shook.
"If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)," "Shoot'n Up and Gett'n High," and "I'm Diggin' You (Like an Old Soul Record)" positively roared. Fortunately, she didn't crank on everything. The sublime ballad "Outside Your Door," a minidrama of desire, was as shimmering and beautiful as ever.
Though much has been made of Ndegeocello's lyrics that deal with racial and sexual politics, the performer didn't make much of this element until the last song of the night. She closed with an apparently autobiographical, painful sketch—built around a slow, jazzy groove and Marvin Gaye's immortal line "Make Me Wanna Holler"—that didn't end the show with a bang but a haunting, plaintive whisper.
ATLANTA JOURNAL & CONSTITUTION
Sonia Murray
August 8, 1994
"Happy black day!" shouted Meshell Ndegeocello. "I don't mean to sound arrogant but happy black day!" Filled with new energy after seeing NBAF performers Phyllis Stickney and Sonia Sanchez, Ndegeocello took the stage with a spirit that even her manager, Beverly Jenkins, hadn't seen. "I guess she's really feeling Atlanta," Jenkins said.
And the sold-out crowd Saturday night at Buckhead's Roxy greeted Ndegeocello as if it had known her for years, singing along and screaming, "I love you!" That was particularly interesting, considering that Ndegeocello has been on the scene barely a year and gets very little airplay. Vinx, best described as a percussionist who drums to all genres of music, seemed quite comfortable as opening act. He joined Ndegeocello onstage during two songs, drawing just as much yelping as the main attraction.
LONDON TIMES
David Sinclair
May 19, 1994
Meshell Ndegeocello, who adopted her second name (Swahili for "free like a bird"), but thankfully likes to be called by her first, swept into view earlier this year with a London show that sent a thrill of excitement coursing along the critical grapevine. She repeated the trick at this late-night club, delighting the 600-capacity crowd with a heavyweight mixture of jazz, funk and rap, spiced with a fierce dose of militant black pride and radical feminist politics.
Born in Berlin, but raised in Washington DC, where she cut her musical teeth on the go-go scene of the 1980s, she is now 25 and conveniently pegged as the first woman to be signed to Madonna's Maverick label (apart from the boss, of course). A powerfully built, shaven-headed figure who, as she told us, frequently finds herself mistaken for a man, Meshell took the stage wearing tight, white trousers, heavy workboots and a blue shirt opeend to reveal a bare midriff.
An imposing presence, to put it mildly, her moods shifted from relaxed good humour to querulous impatience, but were always cloaked in a manner of complete authority. With seven and sometimes nine other highly accomplished musicians sharing an impossibly cluttered stage, there were bound to be logistical problems, but the only thing that really threw her was a camera flashbulb in the crowd, enough to put a stop to one number before it had hardly begun.
For the most part, she alternated stretches at the microphone with playing staccato bursts of rapid slap-funk bass (her first instrument) and more languid, jazzy keyboard interludes. Although blessed with a pleasing singing voice which she tended to bring into play for the choruses, her preferred vocal style is rap.
She dispensed the substance of numbers like "Step Into The Projects" and "Soul On Ice" from her estimable album Plantation Lullabies in a low, fluent drawl with a tough, faintly menacing undercurrent.
She indulged herself in some lenghty bouts of loosely scripted horseplay with the other musicians during "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" and, after 90 minutes or so of a two-hour show had passed, the initial impetus of the performance began to dissipate.
But, with no sampling, drum machines or other techno paraphernalia, her and her group's triumph was to marry the heavily rhythmic impulses and street jargon of 1990s hip hop culture with an inspired level of musicianship that would stand comparison with the best of any era.
THE PRINCE FAMILY
Diana Dawkins
April 30, 1994
Meshell Ndegeocello, who previously appeared at Glam Slam Minneapolis on February 27th, performed at midnight for a one hour set. Stars spotted at the "Gold Masquerade Ball" were Tupac Shakur, Arsenio Hall, Johnny Gill, Cat Glover, Malcolm Jamal Warner, Halle Berry, L.L. Cool J, Mint Condition, Color Me Badd and David Justice as well as Billy Sparks and Levi Seacer, Jr. of NPG Records and Michael, Sonny, Tommy and Morris of the NPG. The only one missing was Prince himself, who arrived around 1:00am but did not perform.
THE PRINCE FAMILY
Diana Dawkins
April 30, 1994
On April 21st Arsenio Hall spoke with Meshell Ndegeocello about her Glam Slam performances. First he asked her what her name meant and she told him that it was Swahili for "free like a bird." He wanted to know where she was from and she said she was an Army brat, born in Berlin, Germany, but residing in Los Angeles now. Then he asked her about Prince, "Your Purple Badness allowed me to come sit and check you out." Meshell queried, "Did you have a good time?" "Oh a real good time!" Arsenio replied. "And you should have seen the musicians watching you, just checking you out and it was real cool. How long have you known Prince?" Meshell shook her head, "Oh, it's real funny and a strange relationship. He just does things for me. I show up and I never meet him or anything like that." Arsenio was incredulous, "That night you didn't talk to him?" "No," Meshell explained, "Never talk to him. Everytime I'm there, he's gone or when I'm gone, he's there." Arsenio still couldn't believe it, "Oh, 'cause he watched your whole set." "Yeah, don't wanna meet him," continued Meshell. "That's like my idol, I don't want to ruin the image that I have of him, so I don't wanna meet him..." At the end of her interview, Arsenio asked Ndegeocello to wake Prince up, so she played a bit of "Let's Work" on bass.
WASHINGTON POST
Mike Joyce
April 1, 1994
When Washington-bred poet, rapper, bassist, singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello performed in town at the Ritz a few months ago, just as her debut album Plantation Lullabies was beginning to win critical acclaim and some radio exposure, only a few dozen people turned out to hear her. At the Bayou Tuesday night, however, Ndegeocello was finally accorded the homecoming due her. Not only was the place packed, but the crowd eagerly joined in on the choruses to "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)," "Dred Loc," "Soul on Ice" and "Call Me," offering proof of what a little well-deserved video and airplay will do.
Ndegeocello is on record as saying her songs aren't political, merely the truth as she sees it: the sometimes blunt, sometimes poetic expressions of a young black woman growing up in America. Her views regarding urban despair and both subtle and obvious strains of racism fueled her lyrics with a mixture of tension, anger, contempt, humor and determination. But even some of her most pointed essays were framed or punctuated by slippery funk jams, jazz-inflected keyboard interludes and sensual,old-fashioned soul harmonies. She slapped out some funk on bass before guitarist David Fiuczynski contributed an appropriately taunting guitar solo to "Boyfriend," but mostly she was content to speak her mind through songs boldly aimed at the head, heart and feet.
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Sam Wood
March 28, 1994
It may be too early to set a coronation date. But as far as Saturday's packed house at the Chestnut Caberet was concerned, there's a new Empress of Funk.
Her name is a mouthful. She's not much over 5 feet tall. Her hair is shaved stubble short.
Meshell Ndegeocello. Remember that name. The woman was born Michelle Johnson—and whose chosen name translates to "free as a bird" in Swahili—hit the stage and for nearly 90 minutes never let up.
On her first tour, Ndegeocello already has the confidence and authority of a seasoned professional. We're talking star quality here—that elusive power that holds an audience in a state of awe.
Ndegeocello is an original who mines history without raiding it. Backed by her razor-sharp seven-piece band, The Watermelon Philosophy, she rapped and sang in a smooth, honeyed alto.
Like Gil Scott-Heron and Linton Kwesi Johnson, she has a gift for no-nonsense, politicized storytelling. So "Soul On Ice" and "Shoot'n Up and Gett'n High" were delivered with a hard-line and militant finger-pointing. But not without a sense of humor.
"Soul On Ice" has been interpreted by some white critics as a racist diatribe. As the band let loose a deep-pocketed P-Funk groove. Ndegeocello laughed. "I think it's funny," she said with a wry grin, "white people think it's a song about them!" The song is a stinging indictment of successful black men who believe black women are no longer good enough for them. And if that wasn't enough to drive the point home, the tongue-in-cheek chorus "A vision of a virginal white beauty" certainly did.
Hard funk ruled the evening. But there were moments of tender balladeering, too. "Dred Loc" married jeep-rocking reggae with Quiet Storm romanticism and delivered the best of both worlds.
Picking up a bass almost as big as she was for "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night." Ndegeocello laid down some of the hottest finger-popping grooves to be heard since Bootsy Collins last visited the city. Go-go collided with heavy-attitude hip-hop. And her taunting rapping spared no sass.
If that wasn't enough to win the hardest-to-please critics, her encore—"I'm Diggin' You (Like an Old Soul Record)," a recapitulation of hard groove and jazz fusion, with smooth rapping and bittersweet soul—clinched it.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Greg Kot
March 1, 1994
Right about now, the music industry must be trying to figure out what to do with Meshell Ndegeocello, a sudden star who resists categorization in the most intriguing way.
The 24-year-old Maryland native, lately a fixture on the burgeoning hip-hop/poetry scene in Greenwich Village, has a sensual yet commanding sing-speak vocal style that bridges the gap between soul and rap. On her recent debut, Plantation Lullabies, she pulls a Prince by writing, performing and producing it all herself.
And then, there's the subject matter: post-feminist, sexually uninhibited, politically charged, racially attuned.
At Park West on Monday, Ndegeocello (pronounced N-day-gay-o-cello) was awhirl, playing keyboards and bass between pelvic thrusts. There was a lusty playfulness to her musicmaking, one that allowed her to tease in one song, "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)."
Her music, as played by a four-piece backing band, dipped into '70s jazz fusion bust was underpinned by taut funk fundamentals and, at times, a reggae feel that was more implied than stated. Chicken scratch rhythm guitar abetted in-the-pocket drums and booty-bumping bass while keyboardist Federico Gonzales Peña sprinkled some flash on top. Two singers flared in and out with soulful pleadings, making the skittering rhythms of "I'm Diggin' You (Like An Old Soul Record)" more than an idle gesture.
While a deep, physical and psychic longing was conveyed by songs like "Sweet Love" and "Outside Your Door," a sense of Ndegeocello's outsider status was never far from the surface.
In "Shoot'n Up And Gett'n High," the survivor of a drug tragedy shakes her fist defiantly at an oppressor. "The white man shall forever sleep with one eye open!"—a line that drew a ripple of applause.
Although the history of racism is a subtext for Ndegeocello's art, her overriding message is one of self-realization. In the epic "Soul On Ice," impressionistic swirls gave way to furious pummeling and back again, while the singer pleaded with her people to love themselves, "the blackness of your skin, the blackness of your mind." If her message was healing, her tone made it seem there was no time to waste.
Opening was poet Samantha Corbell, whose unflinching dissections of sexual politics, its desires and disappointments, were riveting.
She shares with Ndegeocello an almost blithe disregard for boundaries, and is in the vanguard of strong new female voices emerging from New York.
BILLBOARD
Gil Griffin
February 26, 1994
Maybe she'd had a rough day. How else can one explain how Meshell Ndegeocello, who made one of last year's most brilliant records, Plantation Lullabies, could turn in a performance as lame as her January 25 gig at The Grand in New York?
It was ironic that after she and her band botched the introduction to her tune "Soul On Ice" and began again, Ndegeocello brusquely said, "That last song ("Sweet Love") got me jittery. I wanna go back to the hotel room now." It was clear that the normally confident singer/songwriter was unusually uncomfortable.
Her remarks were just one example of how off-putting her on-stage presence was. By leading her six-piece band in performing unnecessarily long solos—especially on "Step Into The Projects" and "Shoot'n Up And Gett'n High"—and exhibiting a generally icy demeanor, Ndegeocello made it easy for members of the audience to feel that they were being blown off, and that Ndegeocello was playing only for herself. As her 75-minute set wore on, many left the club—and probably not only because she took the stage in the wee hours of a weeknight. And why she saved her best songs, "I'm Diggin' You (Like An Old Soul Record)" and "Dred Loc," for encores—long after people had left or lost interest—begs explanation.
What also begs explanation is why the eclectic quintet that opened the show, Screaming Headless Torsos—featuring members of the Black Rock Coalition—hasn't been signed to a major label yet. With a lead vocalist who has a startling range, and a tight band that comfortably weaves jazz, reggae, salsa, and metal, this band deserves and demands attention.
THE INDEPENDENT
Mark Sinker
February 6, 1994
While most rappers opt for short, marketable names (silliest example: Def Jef), Meshell Ndegeocello goes for the full mouthful-of-toffee her parents chose for her. Her first LP, Plantation Lullabies, has been praised for its uncompromising, jazz-inflected musicianship, with echoes of Funkadelic's muzzy drawl and Defunkt's hyper-taut cocaine panic. That's to say, it celebrates some of the most complex black pop ever—a point not lost on the very hip black crowd at the Jazz Café.
Surrounded by musicians a foot taller and wider than her, Meshell is focused, relaxed, wryly amused, and in total control—able at any moment to become one of them (to play a snatch of keyboard, or grab her bass and spar with the main bass player). The songs are good—subtle, honed, with few primary colours. The players like to break into jazz-funk flurries, but there's no waste matter.
She seems loth to choose between playing the music and playing the star (for someone signed to Madonna's record label, this is refreshingly old-fashioned). Yet, as a lesbian single mother with a commitment to black community politics and a line in unashamedly sensual songwriting, she embodies a range of ideas that could condense into stardom. Her look will help—a cropped head is a great focus for non-conformist rage. For now, too much energy is dissipated in bass-practice and respect for history. If Madonna's instincts are right, this won't always be so.
MANCHESTER GUARDIAN
Caroline Sullivan
February 4, 1994
Madonna presumably signed Washington DC rapstress Meshell to her Maverick Records because of the credibility she would bestow upon the still-unproven label. Smart decision. Her debut British gig was packed.
The stage backdrop, a golliwog with its face crossed out, set the tone for the show that followed. The dozen or so songs dwell on such topics as what to do when you're alone in a London hotel room ("cry tears by candlelight") and love, the obtaining of, but always returned to a theme of black empowerment. The smallish, baldish Meshell is an articulate advocate whose flowing, prose-style rraps have evoked comparison with author Maya Angelou. Although the words were often buried by her band's sleek, Gil Scott-Heronesque jazz-funk and difficult acoustics, enough were audible to catch her point.
"Virginal white beauty... dance like a white girl," she crooned on "Soul On Ice," the best song from her Plantation Lullabies album. The cool-jazzing "Dred Loc" is ostensibly a lust song, and she performed it thus, snuggling up to a Page Seven Fella winched onstage for the purpose, but its axis is the line "How I love a black man." In the white reviewer, liberal guilt battled with disapproval; would Madonna be able to get away with "How I love a white man?"
Maybe the question was moot. Meshell's air of command suggests she's accustomed to getting her way in most things. She fluidly switched between bass and keyboards, led her band and sang in a resonantly lustrous voice. She's a singer by inclination, but rap is the better medium for her sprawling lyrics.
The obvious comparison is Nina Simone, with whom Meshell shares a forthright, intimidating but comelling personality. When Simone started out, the music industry considered her too much to handle, and her career suffered. I suspect Meshell won't endure the same fate.
WASHINGTON POST
Mike Joyce
December 4, 1993
Meshell Ndegeocello's performance at the Ritz Wednesday night wasn't without its problems, yet it nevertheless pointed to an extremely bright future for the Washington-bred singer, rapper, composer and multi-instrumentalist. Recurring hums and rings initially marred the sound mix, and there were times when Ndegeocello, who confessed to "feeling under the weather," acted as if she were in a hurry to get back to her hotel room. She did return for an extended encore of her current single, "Dred Loc," however, carving out a deep, sensuous groove with the help of a five-piece band and two vocalists. That tune, with its purely romantic thrust, sharply contrast with the more provocative songs she performed, ranging from the catchy and taunting "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" to the barbed sociopolitical commentaries "Soul on Ice" and "Shoot'n Up and Gett'n High."
In addition to her poetic and pointed lyrics, and the expressiveness of her dark, supple voice, what made the show memorable was the way the band and Ndegeocello, playing slapping bass lines and skittish keyboard runs, imaginatively updated soul music with the harmonies, rhythms and cadences of jazz, funk, hip-hop and rap.
NEW YORK TIMES
Jon Pareles
October 21, 1993
Meshell Ndegeocello likes all kinds of grooves: easy jazz vamps, thumbpopping funk, chunky hip-hop, slowmotion reggae. And she doesn't like to keep them apart. On Monday night at the Supper Club, Ms. Ndegeocello and her band, the Watermelon Philosophy, turned songs from her debut album, Plantation Lullabies, into rhythm rambles, strut dissolving into swing, float shifting to stomp. Her vocals are just as mutable, from recitation to rap to melody, in a low voice reminiscent of Joan Armatrading's, Ms. Ndegeocello got her start as a bass player in Washington go-go bands, and with or without a bass in her hands her syncopations are subble and sure.
In her songs, black pride and female pride don't mix. She's nostalgic, in "I'm Diggin' You," for a time when "everybody was black and conscious and down with the struggle," and angry, in "Soul On Ice," when upwardly mobile black men choose white women, calling the men "indoctrinated by the white racist standard of beauty." In "Shoot'n Up and Gett'n High," she talks about heroin use as a reaction to a "living in the midst of genocide." Her mixture of spoken words, politics and pop choruses places her somewhere between Neneh Cherry and Gil Scott-Heron.
But when she finds a partner, her strength and self-interest vanish. About half of her songs are sultry declarations of love in which she happily serves her man, or wishes she could. "Let me run my fingers through your dreadlocks," she coos in "Dred Loc," promising "to give you some strength as you walk through this world of confrontation." And in her catchiest song, "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)," she cheerfully steals a mate, without compunction.
Lithe in a black bodysuit, Ms. Ndegeocello had plenty of stage presence. She was so clearly in charge of her band and her music that it was odd to see her insisting, "My love is far stronger than pride."
NEWSDAY
Glenn Kenny
August 31, 1993
"I just had a t-shirt made up that reads 'I'm on Madonna's label; let the rumors begin,'" quipped rapper-singer-multi-instrumentalist
Meshell Ndegeocello from the tiny stage of hip Noho basement club Fez on Saturday. Forget the innuendo potential that accompanies any affiliation with Madonna. This gig, a preview of Ndegeocello's Plantation Lullabies album, yielded one definite fact: This very gifted artist won't need to earn her success by association.
Pint-sized and buzz-cut, Ndegeocello immediately established that she is no pro forma hip-hopper. Sure, she had a beeper in the front pocket of her jeans, but there wasn't a turntable in sight, and neither of the two synths in her band's arsenal played any samples.
Launching into tight, jazz-inflected funk, her band showed its strengths right away: arrangements that were spare and airy, solos short and pointed. Rather than try to overwhelm listeners with mouth-mauling verbal gymnastics, Ndegeocello opts for a straight-ahead rap style that
asserts an easy sexual and intellectual confidence. She applies that, and her fine singing voice—a smooth, clear alto—to stories both
wise and sassy. The cold taunts of "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" and savvy blending of the personal and political in "I'm
Diggin' You (Like an Old Soul Record)" fit her equally well.
As she ran the gamut from tender ballads ("Dred Loc") to an icy, clear-eyed analysis of ghetto nihilism ("Shoot'n Up and Gett'n High"),
Ndegeocello exhibited warm, friendly stage presence; she occasionally moved out into the audience for no other purpose than to just hang a bit
with the crowd. (It was, incidentally, nice to see a nearly equal mix of black and white faces at the gig, although most of the audience was
music-industry affiliated.) The fact that this show was on the eve of her birthday probably helped; sure enough, a cake was brought out for
the last song. After acceding to the band's invitation to join in on "Happy Birthday," the crowd nearly forgot to request an encore.
Besides her singing, Ndegeocello contributed some nice Bernie Worrell-influenced synth fills and played bass in a style equally indebted to P-Funk legend Bootsy Collins and finger-popping harmolodic virtuoso Jamaladeen Tacuma. The band matched her at every turn. Highlights included trombonist Josh Roseman's frequently muted solos—models of mellifulous economy—and the frequent blocks of surprising, Cecil Taylor-esque dissonance with which keyboardist Federico Gonzalez Peña frequently ended his acoustic piano runs. (The shifty mix of sounds here was actually more impressive than what's offered on Ndegeocello's solid, but somewhat smoothed-out record.) Throughout the set Ndegeocello gave the group explicit instructions, but rather than seeming bossy it only demonstrated how far-reaching her commitment to her music is.
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