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NEWSDAY
Genetta M. Adams
December 27, 2002
Album Of The Year
Ndegeocello is easily one of the most underappreciated artists making music today. While hip-hop and R&B stay blinded by the bling-bling, Ms. Me’Shell really keeps it real with some soulful truth-telling. She deftly mixes issues of politics, race and sexuality with a fusion of funk, jazz and R&B that will move your mind and your body.
ROLLING STONE
Arion Berger
June 20, 2002
* * * *
Ndegeocello makes a great lost Prince album: Iconoclastic soul sister Meshell Ndegeocello once again laser-focuses on putting forward her agenda: that only revolution will save the black soul, not to mention black music. Cookie's uprising takes place in the bedroom, the streets and the studio, and Ndegeocello's supreme control over the tone and texture of her sinewy vibe is the sound of a woman in charge of her body and mind. Her deep-groove soul is spiced with spoken-word clips, as on "Akel Dama," on which Gil Scott-Heron and others speak over the pulse of a beating heart, and grounded by her smooth vocals, crooning on the get-with-you "Priorities 1-6" and the sexy-sad "Barry Farms"; rapping no-nonsense-style on "Hot Night," which features snippets of Angela Davis. Powerful, beautiful, sensual and activist, this is the record Prince keeps trying to make.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
Cheo Tyehimba
June 7, 2002
A
The queen of boho soul is back with another set of songs that are political and unflinchingly personal, but still manage to entertain. The singer's throaty growl pumps songs like "Hot Night," while other cuts are characterized by sax riffs and hard-driving bass lines. Inspired guest turns from Talib Kweli, Lalah Hathaway, and Dick Gregory help make this one tasty Cookie.
VILLAGE VOICE
Robert Christgau
September 4-10, 2002
A-
Age increased the wisdom she trafficked in while familiarity cut into the sexual allure that ran the roadblocks. So here's hoping Madonna Inc. is as ready to forgive Ndegeocello's limited profitability as she is to not be a materialistic girl. Her basslines prove that unmaterialistic ain't immaterial, and without resorting to anything so obvious as a hook she manages to maintain continuity and interest over an hour-plus of poetry-with-funk. Quiet storm music for people who don't turn off their brains when they get down to bidness—at least not right away.
MONTREAL GAZETTE
T'Cha Dunlevy
June 13, 2002
* * * *
Just when it looked like Meshell Ndegeocello had stepped off into a world of soft, introspective soul, the funkiest female in black music returns with a chip on her shoulder, relevant intelligence to share and a fourth album that does its title justice by touching everything from the booty to the brain and the soul to the libido without ever losing its monopoly over your attention.
Confidence emanates through every second of this disc—not ego, but the kind of lip-curling grit that occurs when one is deep in the groove, making music that matters because it is real, in an industry where reality is a rarity.
"I ain't really into none of that pimp-and-thug mentality," Meshell coos at the beginning of the dripping love jam "Priorities 1-6." She gets to the heart of issues of race, sexuality and the soul throughout. She returns to the street-smart cutting edge of her debut Plantation Lullabies and intercuts it with the bare emotion and striking poetic voice she has developed in the interim. The result: a multi-layered, expository album that is her most complex and accomplished work yet.
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Ben Wener
December 28, 2002
9. Criminally overlooked, but with her stuff that almost goes without saying. Her most approachable work since she said she was digging you like an old soul record, yet also her most brashly outspoken. If only it wasn't left preaching to the choir.
HONOLULU STAR-BULLETIN
Gary C.W. Chun
January 3, 2003
While Eminem has been beating his chest for all the world to hear, Me’Shell Ndegeocello has quietly been putting together a choice repertoire of deep jazz, funk ‘n’ soul songs addressing the sexual, spiritual and political ramifications of being an African-American woman. Despite a commercial nod at album’s end—a Rockwilder and Missy Elliott remix of “Pocketbook,” featuring guest vocalists Redman and Tweet—Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape flows with a earthy richness. The woman’s the real deal and it’s time to give her her due.
WASHINGTON POST
Richard Harrington
December 27, 2002
7. Not the easiest album to listen to, but one that reveals its strengths and uncompromising identity over time, Cookie marks a return to the socially provocative form of Ndegeocello’s 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies Ndegeocello explores matters of race, religion, politics and sexuality with a sharp pen, bumping bass lines and a voice rich with hard-won wisdom.
BUFFALO NEWS
Jeff Miers
December 29, 2002
12. erious bass chops, sexy and sensual vocals, and an ability to place hip-hop in an historical context made this both the boldest African-American musical statement of the year and an album of colorblind beauty.
ATLANTA JOURNAL & CONSTITUTION
Sonia Murray
December 24, 2002
10. On this list only because, if you could drop most of the unusually distancing lyrics, it would be one of the best instrumental records out there.
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Bernard Zuel
July 19, 2002
* * * *
There's a real fierceness about singer, songwriter and acclaimed bassplayer Meshell Ndegeocello that is compelling. It's not that she is aggressive necessarily, for this fourth album is soul and funk of a groove rather than beat nature, but there's plenty of passion. The theme here is the power of the word—and not just hers. So there are snatches of speeches, poetry, readings and interviews that propound theories on freedom, racism, sex and just living. Alongside the likes of beat poet Gil Scott-Heron, Ndegeocello's own words don't falter either, particularly in the sexual double hit of "Barry Farms"—where a straight woman wants (the gay) Ndegeocello for one thing "but you can teach your boy to do that"—and "Trust." To those Ndegeocello has added finger-snapping turns, some slow, smooth soul and a bit of hardnosed funk-meets-rap. You will be energised by this album.
THE COURIER-MAIL (Brisbane, Australia)
September 28, 2002
Ndegeocello has moved on from the more traditional songcraft of her earliest work to a warm and funky mix of hip-hop, soul and jazz. She addresses serious issues in her lyrics, putting her on the same Afro-centric planet as contemporaries such as Speech and Michael Franti. "Priorities 1-6" bubbles along on a late-night jazz-funk groove, "Barry Farms" resides in a space where Joni Mitchell meets Stevie Wonder, while "GOD.FEAR.MONEY" is the kind of rubbery, out-there funk formerly the province of Bootsy Collins.
SACRAMENTO BEE
Marcus Crowder
June 27, 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello sprouted on the pop scene in 1994, covering Van Morrison's "Wild Night" in a spirited duet with John Mellencamp.
She had released the album Plantation Lullabies in 1993, but it seemed her smorgasbord of funk, rock and pop might forever fall through the canyon-size cracks in the music landscape. Her androgynous, category-defying appearance—a bald, bass-playing black woman—left one wondering if she'd just be a musical oddity who would never find a supportive audience.
But her records established an important voice that grew more and more authoritative. Her last and strongest outing, 1999's exquisite Bitter, was a cycle of beautiful melancholy songs about passion.
Ndegeocello's new Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is more of a modern grab bag of African American rock and pop styles. She writes in the album's notes that Cookie pays "homage to the power of the word, written and spoken."
The record has excerpts from poets Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, June Jordan and Gil Scott-Heron; there are also sound bites from Angela Davis and Dick Gregory. Though Cookie has several songs that follow Bitter's introspective pattern, there is a contemporary texture to it, as if Ndegeocello is documenting modern music forms.
She also continues to acknowledge artists who pioneered African American rock and pop, which up to now has been greeted with mixed acceptance. Jimi Hendrix's rhythm-and-blues-based psychedelic pop, for instance, created an exotic imprint, but few followed in his extravagant footsteps.
On Bitter, Ndegeocello gave Hendrix's "May This Be Love" a quiet, meditative reading, and on Cookie she acknowledges Funkadelic with a low-key version of "Better by the Pound."
Cookie also looks in on alternative hip-hop, which has roots in black pop as well. On "Hot Night," she combines "wisdom" in the form of excerpts from an Angela Davis speech with some toasting from progressive MC Talib Kweli.
In pop culture, timing is everything, and African American pop is no longer a musical genre on the outs. Though not as consistent as Bitter, the pop of Cookie may be the right record at the right time for Ndegeocello.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Dan Costello
June 14, 2002
Just in case garage rock isn't your thing, we asked our panel of music experts for some alternative sounds, from jazz to pop. Here are some of their picks.
Meshell Ndegeocello: Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape.
The singer's last name means "free as a bird" in Swahili. The music: offbeat soul with a bit of rock thrown in.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Robert Hilburn
June 2, 2002
* * *
"Just cuz civil rights is law doesn't mean that we all abide/ Tell me are you free?" Ndegeocello asks in the opening track of her fourth album (in stores Tuesday)—a striking return to her early role of revolutionary soul singer after focusing chiefly on the ups and downs of romantic relationships in her last album, 1999's Bitter.
The singer-songwriter-bassist even employs the term "revolutionary soul singer" in the album's second track, "Hot Night," whose aggressive R&B/funk tone also recalls her early work, which was a pioneering step in the neo-soul movement that has given us Lauryn Hill and Alicia Keys.
At her best, in fact, Ndegeocello is the most political of the '90s crop of neo-soul singers, someone who speaks passionately about politics on various levels—sexual, social, racial and economic.
There is much to admire in these tracks, whether Ndegeocello assumes the role of political orator, questions her own faith (the spiritually charged "Jabril") or takes us into a sensual world of private passions ("Barry Farms" and "Trust"). There is a tension and urgency in these moments that is as gripping as pop music gets.
If Ndegeocello had limited the album to, say, 50 minutes, she would have had her fourth straight four-star collection. But the consistency of the 70-odd minute album is broken by tracks—including the cosmic, new age "Earth" and "Better by the Pound"—that lack the absorbing edge that makes Ndegeocello such a rare and valuable talent.
PHILLY WEEKLY
Craig D. Lindsey
June 5, 2002
Grade: A
Ah yes, Meshell Ndegeocello, everyone's favorite bass-playing, Prince-sounding, Afro-centric, neo-soul lesbian/revolutionary, is back with a new album that's as incendiary as it is smolderingly erotic—never has being so socially and politically aware sounded so sexy.
Cookie has Ndegeocello filling tracks with blunt social commentary ("If Jesus was alive today, he'd be incarcerated with the rest of the brothas," she says on "GOD.FEAR.MONEY"), historical sound bites (Gil Scott-Heron, Angela Davis and Dick Gregory are just a few of the special guest activists who appear on the album) and boho poetic riffs, all laid out over Ndegeocello's addictive form of jazz/funk/soul fusion. But it's her smooth-talking numbers of sexual healing that'll have everyone flocking to Sam Goody.
When Ndegeocello dives into the depths of urban erotica ("Trust" is the hot-and-bothered show-stopper here) it heightens and reveals her well-rounded game plan. Cookie ultimately shows how sex is just as much a part of the struggle as everything else, bringing home the message that politics—social, cultural or sexual—can be found at every angle and thus should not be ignored.
A truly overwhelming effort of deep, relentless R&B, stimulating enlightenment and breathtaking sensuality, Cookie is the work of an artist who never stops informing listeners that the revolution can happen in more ways than one. With Ndegeocello, it's make love—and war.
BRE
Sidney Miller, III and Janice James
April 26, 2002
Album Of The Week
"If That's Your Boyfriend, He Wasn't Last Night" were the words that first propelled Meshell Ndegeocello and her unique sound to immense urban and pop radio success. Since then, Meshell's music has drifted a bit from the urban audience, but her new album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, is so urban that it sounds almost like a hip-hop album. Rappers would kill to get many of the beats on this album. Meshell's live instrumentation skills really come into play, as she always inserts a very organic edge into every beat's already hip-hop sound. The hip-hop edge of a album goes as far as to have spoken word poetry on songs like "Dead Nigga Blvd." She also samples political commentary played over a smoothed out hip-hop instrumental on "Hot Night," which sheds truth on some of the realities of communism in America. For someone who's last album was a Bitter acoustic mission to heal a broken heart, it is amazing that Meshell can come back with such a hip and current sound. Even songs like "Priorities 1-6," which have a similar vocal and lyrical sound to her previous album, have their acoustic guitars replaced with digital synths and an offbeat, Timbaland-styled drum track. Cookie covers the gamut of subject matter from social to political to relationship commentary, making the album the definition of an Anthropological Mixtape. Look for Cookie to satisfy urban audience's sweet tooth.
NEW TIMES LOS ANGELES
Sara Scribner
May 30, 2002
Whether she's being a punky downtown hip-hop queen, a spiritual soul-chaser, a soothing medic or a choleric ex-lover, there's one thing you can count on from Meshell Ndegeocello: She's bound to be extreme. Getting a new Ndegeocello record is always exciting—and scary. First, she came on like a philosophical street-corner bard. Then she sought God with Peace Beyond Passion. So much for nirvana striving, because she was quickly kicking and screaming with Bitter, one of the hottest fuck-you records of recent memory. Now, she seems to have come full circle with her new record, Cookie: The Anthropological Mix Tape, which harks back to her Plantation Lullabies debut.
Unlike the songs on Plantation Lullabies, this new material can feel like a crazy patchwork, piecing together jazz, hip-hop, soul, spoken word, funk and rock so randomly that it makes your head spin. The songs' stutter-kick rhythm can be annoying; there's a lot of funkus interruptus. Ndegeocello tries to sift through everything that makes her her (hence "Anthropological") and, strangely, she's crafted what feels like her most impersonal work. But she is an amazing live performer—intimate and precarious—and she'll probably find a way to get under your skin anyway.
JAZZ MAGAZINE
Frédéric Goaty
February 2002
Click here to read the full review.
VILLAGE VOICE
Kandia Crazy Horse
May 1-7, 2002
Meshell dispenses hard-won wisdom and acid critique in equal measure on Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, finally slated for release on Maverick in June after being held for nearly a year. Meshell aims to free yo' mind—aided by guests ranging from Caron Wheeler to Kidd Funkadelic Michael Hampton. She attacks mental slavery, poverty, and racism in an intense tapestry comprising "Akel Dama (Field of Blood)," "GOD.FEAR.MONEY," and "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pts. 1 & 2)." Her lessons are interspersed with sampled science from warriors like Dick Gregory, Angela Davis, and Gil Scott-Heron. Ndegeocello takes up where Tocqueville left off—action-painting the state of the union and brilliantly exploding his notion that no serious, deep art could ever emerge from this backwater colony. The Go-Go Goddess is as slap'n'pluck happy as ever, still committed to courageous jazz and blues improvisation, applying the string-drenched dark veil of 1999's Bitter to fashion a layered, visceral funk opera.
VANCOUVER PROVINCE
Stuart Derdeyn
June 16, 2002
* * *
Jazzy, funky, fierce. It's not easy to describe the latest work by this pop chameleon. Unlike the somber Bitter, this is Meshell's most urban release since her debut. Visionary and ofter weird.
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Devon V. Thomas
April 16, 2002
* * * *
Ndegeocello's fourth album Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is a mesmerizing affair. It's triptych in quality: A blazing sociopolitical critique one minute, a soulful slow burner the next, the album then turns right around and becomes a conversation piece breathing with the sensibilities of Miles Davis. The multi-layered quality of this record is amazingly assembled. She returns true to form on her long awaited follow-up to 1999's Bitter.
Created almost a year before its forthcoming release date Cookie serves as a fine wine. It's lyrical virtues and musical possibilities are inimitable and only get better with age. The incendiary "Hot Night" serves as the perfect backdrop to a long, troubling summer with a blistering rap by Talib Kweli and sound bites by Angela Davis. Ironically, Meshell makes prophecies for the year to come with lines like "Suffer in the World Trade paradise with me now"—the album being created nearly four months before the attacks on America. "GOD.FEAR.MONEY" is a piece that demystifies the perception of celebrity ("I was way down for the revolution, until I found it was contingent upon some corporate sponsorship/ And if Jesus was alive today, he'd be incarcerated with the rest of the brothas/ Devil'll have a great apartment on the Upper East Side, be a guest VJ on Total Request Live"). The lyrics on Cookie are intelligent, witty and direct.
Cookie isn't all trouble funk though, laced within is a bouquet of sensual arrangements. "I ain't gon' pay your rent, all I got is love and time to spend, can I hang with you" is the plea to true love. "Barry Farms" is a no-holds-barred narrative on a past same-sex relationship with a girl who couldn't love her openly without shame and fear ("She had the kind of kisses that made you sad") and sports one of the most surprising lyrical bridges in years. She explores the gamut of elated ecstasy. "Trust" is among the sexiest songs of her career. Temperate yet mild, it simmers with anticipatory nectar ("Put your tongue in my mouth, make me wet, run your hands down my back, grab my ass"). "Earth" is truly transcending, it floats above one's consciousness with the ubiquity of Roy Ayers.
It also marks a return to the bass playing ferocity that made her first two records Plantation Lullabies and Peace Beyond Passion instant classics and influential sample-templates (just ask Brian McKnight).
"Pleasure is the motivation," comments Ndegeocello on "Better By The Pound" and indeed, the album is just that. With backing by such luminaries as Gil Scott-Heron, Lalah Hathaway and Caron Wheeler, it's a sure thing. It is an album that will stay with you long after everything that currently sits on Billboard fades; Cookie only ripens and glows with time. All embracing, all encompassing, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is Ndegeocello in her element. Easily garnering cult status, she taps into the life of a moment and in turn crafts one of the strongest, most emotive and complex albums of a generation.
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
Brian Orloff
May 12, 2002
Grade: A
On her first new album in two years, bassist and singer Meshell Ndegeocello offers stirring ruminations on life, love, politics and sex. Ndegeocello's music is candid; many of her songs are id-invoking sexual journeys, accented by undulating bass lines and psychedelic grooves. Ndegeocello sounds free, leading listeners inward on her organic, improvisational tunes.
Ndegeocello's music tackles Afrocentric themes with a fierce sense of identity. She even samples speeches by black activists Dick Gregory and Angela Davis. "Dead Nigga Blvd" rails against a society which perpetuates lives of emotional poverty. Meshell questions the meaning of freedom ("no longer do I blame others/ for the way that we be/ 'cause niggas need to redefine/ what it means to be free").
Ndegeocello directs her energy toward romance in "Pocketbook," a smoky meditation on desire. Her wah-wah bass and playful musings tell of her attraction to a woman to whom she sings "ya like to have money in your pocketbook/ and that's alright." The chorus, full of programmed drum beats, brims with lust.
Love ballads also populate Cookie, including "Trust" with its sleek bass and suggestive lyrics. Things turn tender in "Earth," bathed in sinewy vox and Rhodes. She croons "you're my earth in paradise."
"Better by the Pound," a cover of a Funkadelic tune, brings the funk in a syrupy, brass-accompanied jam. She sings "pleasure is the motivation/ for the human race." Ndegeocello's poetic hip-hop reflects that belief, fusing social commentary with a textured musical vision.
SPIN
Tony Green
March 2002
Grade: 8/10
Back in the mid-'90s, Meshell Ndegeocello helped invent the current prog-soul boom. Since then, she camped out on the fringes of pop fame — average fans don't remember Ndegeocello except fro her role as John Mellencamp's pre-India.Arie funk-soul foil. Yet her outsider status has allowed her rare opportunities for growth, and her new disc farms conceptual turf (sex, identity, politics, identity politics) tilled barren by her new-school offspring.
Ndegeocello still swings for the same musical fences she did in '93. Here, though, she puts more shots into the seats: Herbie Hancock harmonies, Afro-Latin rhythms, downtown-hip instrumental work, all abetted by producer Allen Cato. Socially, she still believes revolution is the ultimate act of black (and human) self-preservation, and she's surer than ever it's gotta begin in the bedroom. Cookie features characters who store their libidos in cash and status lockboxes, like the teenager who can't enjoy record-breaking gay-sex orgasms without worrying what the neighborhood is saying ("Barry Farms"). What's to blame? Consumer culture; racist, anti-intellectual mass media; apathy — she's got a list of targets longer than John Ashcroft's. The album's theme is summed up on a simmering version of Funkadelic's "Better By The Pound," which demands you pimp your own pleasure principle before someone else does.
BOSTON GLOBE
Renee Graham
June 4, 2002
* * * ½
For nearly a decade, Meshell Ndegeocello has made masterful, challenging albums that far too few people buy, yet that has never deterred her from singing her own revolutionary song.
From her astonishing 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies—arguably the first shot in the so-called "neo-soul" movement—through Peace Beyond Passion (1996), and Bitter (1999), Ndegeocello (pronounced n-day-gay-o-chello) has remained an artist more concerned with making music for both the heart and head, instead of the cash register. Best known for an unremarkable duet with John Mellencamp on a cover version of Van Morrison's "Wild Night," Ndegeocello soars with her own compositions. Her music, as fiery and sensual as a new lover, is a sizzling blend of jazz, funk and R&B, while her lyrics lay bare her pointed thoughts about race, religion, politics and sexuality.
Those beliefs, baldly expressed on such songs as "Leviticus: Faggot, " "God Shiva," and "Shoot'n Up and Gett'n High," have likely cost Ndegeocello radio airplay and CD sales. Yet, she remains true to a creative vision both sophisticated and streetwise, on her bold fourth CD, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape.
After the broken-heart ballads of Bitter, Cookie seems a revival of the sinewy funk of Ndegeocello's earlier albums. The thick humming bassline of the CD's opening track "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)," is dance-floor ready, but the song is also a pointed challenge to African-Americans who have compromised their talent and integrity for record sales.
"You sell your soul like you sell a piece of [expletive], slave to dead white leaders on paper," Ndegeocello recites on the mostly spoken-word song, which is reminiscent of the politically charged poems of Ursula Rucker and Sarah Jones. In the chorus, Ndegeocello states, "No longer do I blame white folks for the way that we be/ 'Cause niggas need to redefine what it means to be free."
Not exactly the kind of mindset likely to get "Dead Nigga Blvd." added to playlists of most hip-hop/R&B stations anytime soon.
Nor is the Latin-flavored "Hot Night," seasoned with a sample of Hector Lavoe's "La Fama" and a speech by author-activist Angela Davis, as Ndegeocello croons in her husky, chocolate-smooth voice about "the fight of the revolutionary soul singer." Talib Kweli, who co-wrote the song, also raps on the track, inviting listeners to "join the party, fist in the air." From a less confident and capable artist, such songs would crumble under the weight of the polemics.
Yet, despite some vigorous finger-wagging, Ndegeocello is never alienating, even when her songs are spiced with snippets from Dick Gregory and Gil Scott-Heron. And, it certainly doesn't hurt that even her weightiest messages are cured in undeniably delicious grooves.
Of course, Cookie is more than a history or civics lesson. Ndegeocello is always intrigued by the peculiar politics of love, sex, and relationships—after all, her first single was 1993's infidelity anthem, "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)," and her last album, Bitter was a solemn study of love-gone-wrong melancholy. Here, the explicit, sultry "Trust" recalls such sexy Prince ballads as "Do Me, Baby" or "International Lover," and alone, could merit this album's "parental advisory" label. In "Priorities 1-6," Ndegeocello asks, "Can I hang with you?" but she also makes it clear that "I ain't gonna pay your rent/ All I got is love and time to spend." It may be one of the most plain-spoken romantic propositions in recent memory.
Cookie closes with "Pocketbook," remixed by Rockwilder and Missy Elliott, and featuring Redman and Tweet. Some are already interpreting this as Ndegeocello's bid for a hit, but hip-hop has always informed Ndegeocello's music. It isn't surprising that she would find common ground with rap artists and producers, especially since she appears to have a better grasp of hip-hop's political origins than most maintstream rap artists today.
At more than 70 minutes, Cookie could have been shorter, but that's a minor complaint—this is Ndegeocello's most satisfying album since Plantation Lullabies. An astute reflection on the shaky state of black music and consciousness, Cookie marks a welcome return of a revolutionary soul singer.
BOSTON GLOBE
Sarah Rodman
July 12, 2002
Since she is such a low-key performer, Meshell Ndegeocello fans may not even know she has a new record out. But Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is as upbeat and eclectic as her excellent 1999 release Bitter was mellow and consistent. She crafts tunes to revolt by with hip-hop beats, tropical rhythms, jazz fusion, burning rock guitars, deeply funky and sinuous vocals and serious old-school soul, making Cookie a tasty treat with socially conscious frosting.
SAVOY
Amy Linden
October 31, 2002
Ndegeocello has been dubbed cutting-edge so many times it's practically part of her name. With her sultry, smoky vocals and rock-solid musicianship, the bassist extraordinaire has collaborated with all-stars such as Lenny Kravitz and Chaka Khan. Ndegeocello's music is deeply personal, unflinchingly political and artistically challenging.
Her fourth effort, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, is an idiosyncratic combination of soul, jazz, funk and hip-hop. Ndegeocello, 34, pushes her already wide boundaries and unleashes a sonic revolution.
BLACK RADIO EXCLUSIVE
"Pocketbook"
April 19, 2002
Single Of The Week
Meshell Ndegeocello reputation as an avante garde and talented black musician was established with her debut project on Warner Brothers—a project that found respect at alternative rock stations. Listen to this urban remix to "Pocketbook," however, and you'll see that Meshell has a sound perfectly suited for the Grammy winning "Lady Marmalade" remake by Christina Aguilera, Mya, Pink and Lil' Kim. They bring the same type of uptempo, hardcore, yet unconfrontational hip-hop sound that won them a Grammy. The song also features vocals by up and coming Timbaland protegé, Tweet, along with raps from Redman. The all-star line-up on this track will take Meshell to new heights of urban radio success.
FRIDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
"Pocketbook"
May 31, 2002
Burke's Best Bets: At one time a "remix" would send up a signal that a record's original version might not be worthy of airplay at a radio station. Nowadays a "remix" is considered a very important tool, one that does help get airplay. That's the case with Rockwilder and Missy Elliott's Remix of Meshell Ndegeocello's "Pocketbook." Add in Redman and Tweet and you have a slammin' track that could surprise some but it shouldn't... it's that good! A music meeting must! BET ON IT!
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
Gerald Poindexter
June 9, 2002
* * * ½
One-stop shopping for compelling music featuring an incipient wisdom and/or informed perspective about love, sex, religion and social politics used to begin and end with Prince. It was his domain, and even today, when he's on his game, it still seems that way.
However, on each of singer-songwriter-bassist Meshell Ndegeocello's three previous albums, and particularly on her latest, "Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape," it's clear that she got game too; she's royalty in her own right when it comes to stimulating the mind, body and soul.
The joy of listening to Cookie is found in its seamlessness—regardless of sonic structure or subject matter. Ndegeocello is on a stream-of-consciousness roll where her thoughts emanate from several sources without reflecting a haphazard state of being. Certainly, she knows chaos, but she's discovered and assigned context to the events in her world and ours.
She controls the intensity and emotion of her mental ebb and flow. On that basis, among others, Ndegeocello's music is superior to more visible performers such as Lauryn Hill, whose recent "Unplugged 2.0" failed to be socially aware and confessional while maintaining artistic credibility.
Ndegeocello's focused approach results in one great track after another. "Priorities 1-6" sounds systematic, but is a love song where the simple refrain "I ain't gonna pay your rent/ all I got is love and time to spend/ can I hang with you?" advocates a relationship unfettered by materialism and motives.
Such lyrical clarity is equally effective on "Barry Farms," when Ndegeocello raps "She couldn't love me without shame/ she only wanted me for one thing" over the percussive go-go music of her native Washington, D.C. That "one thing," whispered slyly by Ndegeocello, is the axis around which ideas of sexuality, empowerment and manipulation huddle and revolve. And fittingly, that track is juxtaposed on the next song, "Trust," an explicit, piano-and bass-driven paean to sexual submission.
These songs demonstrate that as on her previous album, 1999's Bitter, which focused on the breakup of a relationship, there's plenty of Meshell on Meshell. After all, this is an "anthropological mixtape." Hence, her personal progression and sense of order within chaos allows for an easy transition when matters aren't personal, but rather political. She sustains the same passion of mind, whether tossing around soundbites of black activist-artists Angela Davis, Gil Scott-Heron and Dick Gregory; exploring racial politics in "Akel Dama (Field of Blood)"; or constructing a funky polemic on consumerism and hedonism in "GOD.FEAR.MONEY."
And yes, in addition to writing songs with rich imagery and singing and dropping rhymes and spoken-word passages in her textured, husky tone, there's Ndegeocello's assured bass-playing. While Bitter featured her most minimalist musical exercise to date, Cookie, recorded last year, often heeds the call of the recent spate of Bootsy Collins sneaker commercials that exhorts us to "keep that funk alive." Working brilliantly with her sharp, seven-piece band and sometimes in her own zone, Ndegeocello's basslines have multiple, wide-ranging personalities—from jazz to punk to P-Funk.
GOOD TIMES
Bernadette Giacomazzo
June 18, 2002
One thing about Meshell Ndegeocello: she never sold out.
In a world full of pop princesses and Pearl Jam wannabes, Ndegeocello stands alone as a conscientious objector to All Things Trite.
She's also undergone an evolution of sorts: whereas once she stood alone, bass guitar in hand, lending her raspy voice of John Mellencamp's campy pop efforts, she has now assembled a five-piece band called—surprise!—the Conscientious Objectors to fully bring her emotional complexities and political polemics to a heretofore unreached apex.
Enter, then, The Anthropological Mixtape. Described by its creator as "looking at how I came to be and who I am." It's a well-rounded mix of rap (the closer "Pocketbook," features rap royalty Missy Elliott and Redman), funk ("Better By The Pound"), and straight-ahead blues infused rock ("GOD.FEAR.MONEY") that first made Ndegeocello a household name. With Soul II Soul's Caron Wheeler and Funkadelic's Michael Hampton making notable guest appearances on the album, this mixtape promises to be one you'll want to hear again and again.
WOMEN.COM
Michael Parillo
June 2002
Remember the harmless hit cover of Van Morrison's "Wild Night" that paired Meshell Ndegeocello with John Mellencamp back in 1994? Well, forget that. It might have gained the cult-figure-ish Meshell a few new mainstream-rock fans, which she surely deserved, but the warm, fuzzy single was light years away from the down-'n-dirty funk that is her true calling. Anyway, for my money, Meshell's burbling bass line was what made the song worthy of notice in the first place. The Coug was lucky to have her. Now Cookie, Meshell's fourth and best studio LP, comes along eight years later like a double shot of bourbon to the sip of grape juice that was "Wild Night."
The spirited, tough-talking Cookie, which earns every millimeter of its parental advisory sticker, is a pretty serious affair—though it's also serious fun. Like many great records that poke through the fluffy outer layer of traditional pop subject matter, Cookie strikes a steady balance between personal issues and sociopolitical commentary. There are some weighty concepts beneath Meshell's fat grooves, but the bassist/singer/songwriter never loses sight of a prime booty-shake. Just like fans could bang their heads to Rage Against the Machine's big, Zeppelin-like riffs without necessarily signing up to join the band's crusade against worldwide injustice, it's up to you to decide whether to ponder Cookie's message or simply to get down. And that's part of what makes it such a strong album—more delights are revealed with each listen. You might just sway with it at first and only later start chewing on the big issues that Meshell presents so eloquently.
These issues include sex—plenty of sex—spirituality, freedom and the modern African-American experience, and Meshell confronts the topics with passion and conviction. Whether she's singing, talking or rapping, whether she's whispering or belting it out, her voice drips with charisma, and you can't help but want to soak in a big earful of whatever she has to say. Under the vocals, a laid-back grooviness unites material that skips from hip-hop to funk to jazz to Prince-style pop. Cookie talks directly to the hips, but not at the sacrifice of melody. Not at all, in fact—many of the songs are the kind you walk around singing to yourself.
Meshell calls the album an "anthropological mixtape." At first I wasn't sure what to make of that—I pegged the line as an abstract turn of phrase that sounds cool yet isn't exactly chock-full of meaning. But with each listen, the subtitle's significance became more and more clear. The mix-tape part is pretty easy: Cookie's many styles (incorporating ideas from the '60s through the present day) and guest voices like Redman and a sampled Gil Scott Heron make the record play a bit like a mix. But it's Meshell's devotion to exploring the perilous yet hopeful states of life and love in the pulsating (and often dangerous) cites of the United States—the anthropological part—that's the truly fascinating thing about Cookie. It's a dark, smoky, late-night snapshot of the here and now. Throw it in a time capsule marked 2002.
In a nutshell: Damn right Cookie's tasty, but it's funky—not sweet.
THE ONION AV
Stephen Thompson
June 12, 2002
On her third album Bitter, Meshell Ndegeocello narrowed her notorious thematic ambition to create a bleakly beautiful treatise on infidelity and trust. The result was her finest work, and one of 1999's best releases, but Ndegeocello has said it also alienated fans who regarded Bitter as excessively "white" in sound.
Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape was apparently conceived (or at least executed) as a response to those charges, but the album's hyper-ambitious, uncompromising power demonstrates that Ndegeocello had far more in mind than addressing her critics. Exploring a messy sprawl of racial and sexual politics, and occasionally opening the floor to guest poets and speakers like Angela Davis and Gil Scott-Heron, Cookie is so frequently brilliant that its periodic missteps feel like integral parts of a grand design.
After opening with the incendiary "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)," with its chorus of "No longer do I blame white folks for the way that we be/ Niggas gotta redefine what it means to be free," the album follows Ndegeocello's narrative digressions into sex, love, world politics, death, race, religion, and rage. On "Jabril," her protagonist ruminates on her imminent death by gunshot, while the funky "Hot Night" examines Ndegeocello's role as a socialist and "revolutionary soul singer," but Cookie peaks when its political vision wears a human face. In the melancholy "Barry Farms," the album's best track, she laments the motives of a closeted lover—"She couldn't love me without shame/ She only wanted me for one thing/ but you can teach your boy to do that"—providing a sad and searing sequel to the irresistibly sticky come-ons in "Pocketbook."
At 71 minutes, Cookie eschews the consistency of its near-perfect predecessor, but it's not necessary: Ndegeocello explores questions without answers here, and her complex journey is a glorious destination in and of itself.
RAP AND HIP-HOP GUIDE
Ifé Oshun
May 16, 2002
After three Grammy-nominated albums and almost a year in the wings (due in part to the September 11 bombings) Meshell Ndegeocello's long-awaited fourth full-length album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, is slated to hit the streets on June 4. After a respectful wave good-bye to the urban audience who virtually ignored her classic debut 1993 Plantation Lullabies, the bass-slapping virtuoso, now going by the name of Meshell Suhaila Bashir, returns to her roots with an uncompromisingly honest gritty look at a host of topics comprising sex, politics, poverty, freedom and mental slavery.
Oh, did I mention sex? Described by the original neo-soul diva herself as "Master P meets Bitches Brew,” Cookie features dripping wet lust jam "Trust" ("Put your tongue in my mouth, make me wet, run your hands down my back, grab my ass") and the lesbian-love joint "Barry Farms," right alongside thugged-out political commentary in "Dead Nigga Blvd. Pts 1 & 2"—a clarion call to Black America to get off its ass and decide its own destiny. The salsa-peppered "Hot Night" drops science with help from Talib Kweli while the lushly sensual "Earth" proves why she is the mother of the hip-hop/R&B/soul movement continued by D'Angelo, Jill Scott, India.Arie and Musiq.
Recorded nearly four months before the attacks on America, the 16-song opus contains eerily prophetic lines like "Suffer in the World Trade paradise with me now" and densely woven musical textures with the voices of poets and activists such as Angela Davis, Dick Gregory, and Gil Scott-Heron sampled throughout. It is social commentary like this underpinned with hot sub-woofer-blowing bass riffs and sensual thug-tinged murmurings that assists Cookie in helping you move your behind while seeding your brain with unforgettably dope lyrics. This is undeniably one of the most powerful releases of the year.
MARIE CLAIRE
March 2002
On Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, the diva fuses global rhythms and hip-hop styling into a silky-smooth set of songs.
AMBUSH
May 31, 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello's fourth CD marks an advance for the singer/bassist with funky high art for the ghetto masses. Meshell describes Cookie as "a very open record with a lot of different styles pumping through it as the album is looking at how I came to be and who I am." Some highlights from the CD are "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)," "Hot Night," "Priorities 1-6," "Earth" and "Pocketbook." Cookie is available in stores come June 4 and is sure to become a great classic.
PALM SPRINGS BOTTOM LINE
May 31, 2002
This is Ndegeocello's first CD in three years and her fourth overall. The strong bass line and sensual vocals make this her most personal set to date, and, man, was it worth the wait. "Pocketbook," the first single, has been remixed and produced by Missy Elliott and Rockwilder and feeds directly into your mind, body and soul. The rest of the disc is nothing short of intelligent, intense, inspiring not to mention poetically brilliant. Cookie is also the most mainstream offering of Ndegeocello's career thus far. Meshell herself has called this set a bit of "R&B, hip-hop, funk, soul, spoken word, jazz and rock & roll. I use it all in my palette." Is it too early to wish her luck February 23, 2003? That's the date of the 45th Annual Grammy Awards. See you there.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Brian Carr
June 2, 2002
Grade: B-
Meshell Ndegeocello is known for her 1994 duet with John Mellancamp, "Wild Night." But for nearly a decade, her own releases have transcended rock, jazz and neo-soul.
Hip-hop infuses Cookie, an energetic yet introspective work that follows 1999's melancholy Bitter. The disc segues from brazen songs of lust ("Pocketbook") to bass-thumping, neo-feminist anthems ("Hot Night") and biting political cuts. On "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)" she raps about bleak urban realities in a sultry groan. Lyrically, she shifts from the carnal to the divine against a foundation of unorthodox melodies.
Free-jazz horn riffs intertwined with spoken-word samples from Harlem Renaissance poets Countee Cullen and '70s activist Angela Davis give props to the past but are set within fresh, contemporary grooves. Cookie isn't likely to be a breakthrough disc, but its brooding complexity makes it worth a listen.
LAUNCH
Dan Leroy
June 10, 2002
Grade: 3/5
After two stellar albums that used her basslines to anchor a genre-busting blend of hip hop, soul and jazz, Meshell Ndegeocello turned downbeat singer-songwriter on 1999's Bitter, which left some fans feeling the same way. But three years later, Ndegeocello has wisely brought her bass back to center stage, reclaiming much of her former musical brilliance.
While the pop playfulness of past singles like "If That's Your Boyfriend" is long gone, this Mixtape features tunes that dig even deeper into the shared roots of jazz and R&B, with some Hendrixian guitar squalls nicely roughing up the funk on occasion. Those grooves are in service once again to Ndegeocello's sociopolitical critiques, largely abandoned for introspection on Bitter. Yet post-9/11, the pool of those willing to see the wisdom in Angela Davis soundbites and anti-capitalist screeds like "Hot Night" has dried up considerably. Meshell's best when making the political personal—as she does on the blistering, explicit ballad "Trust"—instead of the other way around.
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.
KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL
Chuck Campbell
June 9, 2002
* * ½
Meshell Ndegeocello snaps out of the strings and melancholy of 1999's alluring Bitter with Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, an "improvisational" genre mishmash with sexual and political overtones.
The problem with Ndegeocello's revitalization is that she doesn't seem fully reawakened, and no matter how good the 71-plus-minute release is on a subconscious level, listeners will be fighting off drowsiness, especially those who attempt a second helping of Cookie.
One track blurs into the next as Ndegeocello and her band amble through songs heavy on atmosphere and thin on development. Not surprisingly, Ndegeocello's bass tends to rumble in the foreground—most effectively on the sensual trio "Priorities 1-6," "Barry Farms" and "Pocketbook," a free-flowing cut that has been remixed into a single with appearances by Redman and Tweet.
A loose mix of jazz, funk and hip-hop, Cookie's" spontaneous-feeling music is too modest to be anything but a backdrop for something more substantial, presumably the vocals. Yet the spoken, rapped and sung lyrics are relegated even farther back, despite their "important" aspirations—although those who force themselves to concentrate on the lines won't find much significance in all the chatter about capitalism, violence and whatnot.
More persuasive is Ndegeocello's erotic vibe, a repeating theme both overt and implied—though frankly the shallow masses may not be as susceptible to her seduction as they would be to more conventional Barbie-like beauties. Lookism isn't holding Ndegeocello back as much as her own austerity, however, and a release as uneventful as Cookie doesn't help.
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PLAYBOY
Nelson George
February 2002
Grade: 4/5
Meshell Ndegeocello's fourth CD, marks an advance for the singer-bassist. As the title suggests, Meshell is after more than a hit record. The grooves are as deep and rich as her previous efforts, but the lyrics have a thoughtful, biting sociopolitical slant. The voices of poets and activists are sampled throughout, adding layers of intensity to the funk arrangements.
Beneath the review on Playboy's Rockometer, Playboy's critics gave Cookie the following rating (with 10 being the highest): Robert Christgau 9, Vic Garbarini 8, Dave Marsh 7, Charles M. Young 7, and Nelson George gave it a 9.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Joshunda Sanders
December 25, 2001
Click here to read the full review.
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Ellis Widner
June 16, 2002
A
The broken-hearted melodies of Bitter are gone. In their place: passionate, political, starkly personal, absorbing, entertaining songs that hearken back to, and exceed her debut, Plantation Lullabies.
Cookie is a stunning work that emphasizes the artist's sinewy, deep grooves. Ndegeocello understands, and applies, hip-hop's political roots. Thoughtful sound bites from black activists such as Gil Scott-Heron, Angela Davis and Dick Gregory add historical context, while rappers Redman, Tweet and Talib Kweli add contemporary appeal. It is preachy in spots, but Ndegeocello doesn't alienate thanks to her irresistible grooves.
Whether speaking of politics, questioning her faith or exploring sensuality, Ndegeocello's husky voice brims with tension and urgency. She's also a killer bass player. Her music is a fiery and sensual blend of jazz, funk, ambient and R&B; her lyrics are blunt thoughts on race, religion, politics and sexuality. Cookie is sophisticated and streetwise, and deserves its "parental advisory" label.
MELBOURNE AGE
Shaun Carney
July 11, 2002
* * * *
Meshell Ndegeocello's latest release is a timely reminder that genuine soul is still out there. At 34, and nine years after her solo debut, Ndegeocello is something of a veteran, and the emotional claustrophobia of her previous album, Bitter, provoked fears she might have run out of inspiration. Not so. Cookie is a smouldering manifesto of political and sexual revolution, without doubt her best work. Tightly arranged and held together by the fluid dexterity of Ndegeocello's bassplaying, tracks such as "Trust," with lyrics that make Prince sound like a wallflower, and "Pocketbook," performed here with Redman and Tweet, are a near flawless blend of funk, hiphop and soul grooves. The political component of Cookie comes courtesy of spokenword clips from, among others, Dick Gregory and Angela Davis, forming the basis of a series of meditations on black poverty and black identity. Another stunning, hairs-raised-on-the-arms work from one of pop music's great unrecognised talents.
MONTREAL MIRROR
Gerard Dee
June 20, 2002
9.5/10
Like her previous sets, Ndegeocello's latest is built around a theme. Her astonishing '93 debut Plantation Lullabies was a dead-on conversation about race; '96's groundbreaking Peace Beyond Passion took on religion; '99's Bitter dealt with complex relationships. This time, her target is politics. The guests—Tweet, Missy, Lalah Hathaway, Caron Wheeler—are subtle, blending seamlessly into Ndegeocello's landscape. Not so voices from the past like Angela Davis ("Hot Night") and Dick Gregory ("Dead Nigga Blvd."), who share the spotlight throughout. On the set's most mesmerizing track, "Akel Dama (Field of Blood)," Ndegeocello literally fades out and lets the words of Gil Scott-Heron, Countee Cullen and Etheridge Knight take over. A triumph of artistry, Ndegeocello continues to be groundbreaking nearly 10 years after her debut.
NEW POWER CLIQUE
Lela Jefferson
June 15, 2002
* * * * *
This funky Cookie will make Meshell even more famous than Amos... Hot!!
BILLBOARD
Pocketbook
Eric Aiese
June 15, 2002
While critics have loved Ndegeocello for nearly a decade, commercial success has been limited for the acclaimed, eclectic singer/ bassist. While she has straddled genre lines for this entire span, including her smash collaboration with John Mellencamp on 1994's "Wild Night," Ndegeocello has remained closest to the R&B idiom, with modest success. This may change, though, with "Pocketbook," which sports a contemporary relevance, thanks in large part to the all-star remix, which brings four major talents to the table. Rockwilder and Missy Elliott rework the cut into a party-friendly jam, and the appearance of Redman and Tweet will generate appeal for the younger set. In effect, this is Ndegeocello's best chance yet at expanding her devoted fan base to reach the wide R&B/rap audience. The lesbian-centric lyric stands to create some buzz, though the cut will stand strong on its own merit. Watch for continuing action at urban radio through the summer, particularly in those markets where Ndegeocello's live stage show rears its beautiful head.
NETWORK FORTY
Pocketbook Remix
DJ Hideo, KKBT Los Angeles
June 14, 2002
Don't sleep on this record. "Pocketbook" is a great collaboration of a dope chorus (Tweet), dope MC (Redman) and a dope artist (Meshell). The remix is HOT!
BET.com
Jon Caramanica
June 2, 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello delivers yet another masterpiece album.
Meshell Ndegeocello is from the Bay Area and, like any good musician from the Bay, she's got a little bit of mack in her. Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is unabashedly sultry, both in content and in musical choices. Sex has always been an integral part of the Meshell Ndegeocello equation, just as important as her political commitment, but none of her other albums capture the mood quite as well as Cookie does.
On "Priorities 1-6," she insists, "I just wanna talk and get to know you," but it's clear the only talk she's interested in is of the pillow variety. On "Barry Farms," her exploring lover strays and then returns, dissatisfied with her life on the other side."You know I miss you, babe," she whispers, "can't nobody eat my pussy the way that you do."
Meshell hasn't lost her polemic edge, though. After all, the first words on this album are "You sell your soul like you sell a piece of ass? No longer do I blame white folks for the way that we be, because niggas need to redefine what it means to be free." "Akel Dama (Field of Blood)" features a sobering soliloquy by a male accompanist that sets a tone both somber and proud.
On Cookie, as on her other albums, Meshell's music is just as rich as her passion. "Bla Bla Bla, Dyba Dyba Dyba" features blissful jazz breakdowns, and "Trust" snails along, wallowing in its own contemplation, but with an edge of triumph. More than any other artist in modern black music, Meshell filters the sounds of old to create something truly astounding: a sound that's utterly contemporary, but bears no resemblance to the mainstream. She's a master in her own time.
REQUEST
Carol Cooper
July/August 2002
Editors' Pick: 83/100
In a perfect world, the cut "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Part I)" from Meshell Ndegeocello's latest release would get as much airplay as a Ja Rule hit. After all, isn't Ndegeocello's funky topicality exactly the kind of renewed relevance the rap industry promised to deliver after 9/11's global wakeup call? Fortunately, we don't have to wait on hip-hop's playas 'n' gangstas to come correct, because Cookie delivers the real deal right here, right now.
Once again, this shrewd multi-instrumentalist makes her band blend P-Funk, acid-rock, world-beat, and go-go riffs into a singular brand of 21st-century jazz fusion. Ndegeocello spikes this often-danceable, always-potent cocktail with ironic spoken-word samples and her own wry, boldly provocative observations. Who else would rap over a multi-genre club track like "Hot Night," combining a hot salsa-horn hook with sound bites from political activist Angela Davis? On the similarly uptempo single "Pocketbook," guest collaborators Redman and Tweet get with Meshell's ambitious program courtesy of a Rockwilder-Missy Elliott remix. But the rest of Cookie, which contains memorable contributions from Caron Wheeler, Lalah Hathaway, fellow bassist Marcus Miller, and P-Funk guitarist Michael Hampton, is pure Ndegeocello flash and ambient sass, all in the service of her most accessible album since 1993's Plantation Lullabies.
In a perfect world, this is the kind of album Alicia Keys would have made. Then again, if the world were perfect, neither she nor Ndegeocello would have had to.
PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS
Jonathan Takiff
June 4, 2002
Grade: A
Meshell Ndegeocello's Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is a vital, visceral mix of sociopolitical polemics and sexual allure, deep funk grooves and ambient musical atmosphere. Sound bites from black activists Angela Davis, Dick Gregory and Gil Scott-Heron underscore her convictions, while rap stars Redman and Talib Kwali add currency. Appealing to head and body, Ndegeocello carries the revolutionary spirit of Marvin, Gil and Prince.
E! ONLINE
June 4, 2002
Grade: A-
After bringing us down with all of that love stuff on 1999's Bitter, Meshell Ndegeocello is back to her socially conscious self. The result? This politically and sexually conscientious party on plastic. An eclectic exploration of intimate details, low-octave objection and superior bass-playing, this hot—and lengthy—Cookie drips with R&B, hip-hop, Latin grooves, experimental jazz, blues and techno tidbits for yummy multilayered goodness. And in case you think she doesn't know how to craft a hit, Ndegeocello has invited Redman and Tweet in for a slamming remix of "Pocketbook" for some radio love. Sweet.
WICHITA EAGLE
Ron Sylvester
June 30, 2002
* * * *
Meshell Ndegeocello creates music for life.
In a current musical environment overrun by radio singles of teen dreams, Ndegeocello follows the pattern of a dying musical breed—the socially relevant, concept recording. And bless her for that.
In an area where singles are taking over albums, Ndegeocello gives people a reason to buy, and listen to, an entire CD. There are no hit singles here. But this is music that gets under your skin and surges through your veins.
The title refers to the social commentary that celebrates a marriage of urban poetry and music. Explicit free verse combines with a variety of rock, jazz and funk fusion to take a listeners on several journeys of self-discovery. This is the kind of music Jack Kerouac would be listening to if he were still alive. Samples from speeches by Dick Gregory, Angela Davis and Gil Scott Heron add strength. Although many of the songs may be rooted in the African-American experience, their messages are universal to people of all backgrounds.
The tracks are musical essays that range from racial tension ("Dead Nigga Blvd (Pts. I & II)") and obsessions with material possessions ("Priorities 1-6") to sexual discovery ("Barry Farms").
The songs are explicit and parents might want to preview this if younger teens start bringing it home. But for mature listeners, none of the language is gratuitous. A song about romantic desire and fulfillment, for example, leaves nothing to the imagination, but it falls under the title, "Trust."
Each song packs its own power, and this is the kind of CD that you don't just listen to.
You experience it—kind of like life itself.
IN LOS ANGELES
June 4, 2002
* * * *
"It's Master P. meets Miles Davis' Bitches Brew," so claims Meshell Ndegeocello on her scintillating fourth album. Although one of today's most original and influential artists (hello, Jill Scott, Alicia Keys, and India.Arie), she is quick to admit she stands on the shoulders of giants, drawing musical inspiration from Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Prince, Nina Simone and citing the powerful words of intellectuals such as Dick Gregory, Angela Davis, or Gil Scott-Heron.
Her anthropological mixtape is just that—a sinewy, soulful, self-exploration on what it means to be a person of color, a woman, a lover, an activist, a mother. Not satisfied to pander to lowest-common denominator "black folk," whom she describes as "wannabe gaudy pimps and thugs wearing diamond watches" in the bold "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)," Meshell holds up a mirror to an imperfect world whose reflection can be ugly.
I know what you're thinking: "Meshell's gonna bum me out trying to save the world." The fact is, its just the opposite. This lyrical poetry speaks with such class, such hope, and such depth, it's impossible not to feel uplifted. Not to mention, this is one helluva deep, funky, jazzy—and fearlessly sexy—throwdown (one listen to the explicit lesbian encounters of "Barry Farms" or "Trust" make k.d. or Melissa sound as gingerbread as Doris Day).
Her revolution might never be televised, but she pays that no mind. Her artistry deserves your ears.
THE CAIRNS POST (Queensland, Australia)
Cyclone Wehner
July 9, 2002
* * * ½
Meshell Ndegeocello is one of the most enigmatic musicians of her generation, laying down urban blues, funky R&B and conscious hip-hop, but never being totally embraced by the neo-soul collective... because of her ambiguity.
Cookie represents a return to the earthy classic Plantation Lullabies as she gets stuck into the groove.
"Dead Nigga Blvd" is especially salient, while in a strange, but not entirely unsuccessful move, Missy Elliott and Rockwilder remix the single "Pocketbook."
TORONTO SUN
Jane Stevenson
June 23, 2002
* * *
Ndegeocello has a lot to live up to after her stunning 1999 release Bitter.
That sultry collection of stripped-down music—basically strings, piano and acoustic guitar, with producer Craig Street on board—was one of the best of the year.
On her latest release, Ndegeocello has taken a major left turn, adding plenty of politically minded spoken word, jazz and hip-hop to her original funk and R&B sound with the help of co-producer Allen Cato, her longtime guitarist.
Still, despite the presence of such guests as Talib Kweli (Black Star) and Caron Wheeler (Soul II Soul), it falls far short of Bitter's subtle brilliance.
There's a scattered, weighed-down feeling to the lengthy album, whose best bits come during its more cohesive moments, like on the X-rated "Trust," the sexy "Earth" and "Criterion," a cover of George Clinton's "Better By The Pound," and the energized Rockwilder/Missy Elliott remix of "Pocketbook" featuring Redman and Tweet.
As for the rest, it's well-meaning, but it doesn't really work as music.
ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION
Sonia Murray
June 23, 2002
Grade: B
Meshell Ndegeocello's fourth album would have been an incredible instrumental record—which should let you know something is wrong right there. In her nine-year career, Ndegeocello has proved herself a remarkable lyricist. Yet this new album—supposedly a response to critics who said her last one, 1999's Bitter, wasn't "black enough"—is a hodgepodge of her previous three, and it doesn't have enough entry points.
Actually, there's only one: Every single on Cookie crackles with so much funk, R&B, go-go, jazz and overall musical heft that this album singlehandedly offers hope for the whole narrowly defined genre now tagged "urban contemporary"—a musicianship that was also evident on Ndegeocello's 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies.
But battling against all that's good about Cookie is the persistent stridence that many also found in Peace Beyond Passion (1996). Even worse, on "Akel Dama (Field of Blood)" and "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pts. 1 & 2)," Ndegeocello's critical notebook on black culture just gets downright abrasive. Too infrequently do sound, subject and delivery work as a cohesive whole, as on "Earth," a warm and smartly penned show of appreciation featuring Caron Wheeler of Soul II Soul and Lalah Hathaway.
The really interesting thing is that "Earth" sounds like a leftover from Bitter. Maybe that's a hint that Ndegeocello would have done better building on that album instead of railing against it. What she's given us, though, is the first Meshell Ndegeocello CD that would be a lot better if you could only mute the harsh lyrics.
THE BOOK LOS ANGELES
Marc Goldstein
May 15, 2002
In a world consumed by hatred and materialism, Meshell Ndegeocello has chosen the red pill over the blue one to see how deep the rabbit hole really goes. The revolution she promotes is that of the mind, and her weapons are her faith, love and empathy for the soul of men, with an uncanny ability to transform the darkest emotional turmoil into digestible poetic words of strength, courage and wisdom. Maybe the brutal honesty of her husky voice, equally venom and honey, has alienated her from mass audiences, but the only truth she knows is to be herself, a lover, a mother, a warrior.
Cookie is a less introspective effort than her last two records Peace Beyond Passion and Bitter. Placing the emphasis on observing, never judging, Meshell goes in search of the truth in everyone, becoming an incidental mirror in the face of hypocrisy, brutality, and all forms of mental slavery. To speak of her words only would be to ignore her musicianship as an accomplished guitar, bass and keyboard player, and the leader of a seven-piece band. Her baselines are the foundation of every composition, giving the music its pulse and drive in a meshing of jazz, hip-hop, R&B, soul and prog rock that eludes any format. With that kind of talent, it would be easy for Meshell to craft a hit song and dive into the riches of pop stardom and MTV as she almost could have, first as a bass player for John Mellencamp, than with her 1993 pseudo hit "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)". But then there would be no one left in the music world to take on our sins and save our souls.
theHotness.com
Nicole Moore
February/March 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello’s latest release is evocative of all that reflects good, healthy living. Songs like "Dead Nigga Blvd.," "Hot Night" and "Better by the Pound" bounce with bite, honesty and the kind of vulnerability that make you want to dig deeper and love better.
BILLBOARD
"Earth" (Lazy Dog Remix)
Michael Paoletta
January 19, 2002
The original neo-soul diva gives fans a sneak peek into her upcoming album Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape with the lovely and sweet "Earth." Devotees of the "Body & Soul sound" will no doubt appreciate the lush (remixed) rhythms provided by Ben Watt of Everything but the Girl.
URB
"Earth" (Lazy Dog Remix)
Scott Sterling
April 2002
Maybe you remember the Lazy Dog remix of Sade's "By Your Side" that blew up on bootleg before she squashed an official release? Instead of getting mad, the Dog just gave the same treatment to Ndegeocello's new single. It's smooth, the rhythms are solid and the lovely vocal melody takes the whole thing to peaktime perfection.
INTERVIEW
Sarah Valdez
February 2002
Ambient grooves surround stream-of-consciousness lyrics like funk wallpaper on this album, which might seem at first like one long jam session. But with subtle tempo and key changes and trademark fusing of the political and personal, the bald, butch bassist creates enough texture to make up for a lack of conventional song structure.
DENVER POST
G. Brown
March 10, 2002
A reason to go to a record store in the coming week: The neo-soul movement has recently promoted such artists as Jill Scott, Bilal and India.Arie, but Meshell Ndegeocello precedes them all. The singer-songwriter-bassist's three albums have been hailed for genre-busting musicality, but they haven't provided mainstream attention—she's too bold, even strident. The songs on Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape are about lust, beauty, religion and politics, built on what she calls "improvisational rhythm & blues grooves."
SAVOY
June/July 2002
This summer, silky soul singer Meshell Ndegeocello drops her fourth album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape. The bass-playing diva teams with Missy Elliott and Tweet, Redman, Talib Kweli and Funkadelic guitarist Michael Hampton. Cookie is sexy, political and groovy.
As usual, Ndegeocello doesn't disappoint.
HONEY
May 2002
Mitzi Miller
She made her mark in 1993 with her single "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)," off her debut release, Plantation Lullabies. And the singer/songwriter continues to seduce listeners by mixing jazz, rock and soul with spoken word. On tap: Her new album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, explores religion, love, beauty and politics. The verdict: Just try not to feel Meshell's
empowering vibe on this dynamic and dope new release.
ELLE
Matt Diehl
February 2002
Since her acclaimed 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies, Meshell Ndegeocello has been breaking down barriers of race, sexuality, gender, and musical genre—apt endeavors by a woman who's surname means "free as a bird" in Swahili. Ndegeocello's latest, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, maintains her refreshingly brazen innovation, blending musical accessibility with eversharp polemics and combining spoken word and Prince-link funk with rich biblical imagery and sinuous bass. A bewitching, smokily mysterious musical tapestry.
WIRED
Adrienne Day
February 2002
Meshing freewheeling soul with bluesy rock riffs and a politically charged message, Ndegeocello's 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies was an instant classic. After two progressively mellow follow-ups, Ndegeocello is back with an attitude. Cookie seethes with righteous indignation as inchoate yearnings are driven to the surface by blaring Latin horns, slick R&B rhythms, loved-up organ licks, and the occasional ill-placed prog-rock flourish. The feisty siren reaffirms her pledge to fight the system, leaving less room for quiet introspection and more for wails to action.
MAXIM BLENDER
Kieran Scott
April/May 2002
* * *
Emerging in 1993, this wildly talented bassist with a shaved head cut a radical figure, playing complex jazz-funk while addressing civil rights and gay issues with plain-spoken passion. After the introspection of 1999's Bitter, she ambitiously surveys the current state of black culture, scorning thugs and playas on "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Part 1)" and quoting Public Enemy on the protest rap "Hot Night." Her lustrous music can err on the side of sleepy, because she prefers atmospherics and tricky harmonies to blaring hooks. As a contrast to the Top 40's shouting hucksterism, Ndegeocello's agile ambition tells an important tale about wisdom and dignity.
CURVE
Rebecca Jane Alber
April 2002
The deep pounding groove bass that propelled Ndegeocello as a well-known master of her instrument sets the stage for this 15-song historical journey via music. Activist Angela Davis’ words on poverty and socialism mix powerfully into “Hot Night,” weaving a multimeaningful message. End result? Women rock (politically and musically).
This album goes beyond politics — it’s sexy. If you’re looking to woo that lady friend, “Priorities 1-6” and “Akel Dama” are drippy rhythm-driven love jams (“Put your tongue in my mouth/ run your hands down my back and grab me/ lay me down”). One may wonder if Ndegeocello had her lady friend, Rebecca Walker, in mind when penning these words.
With her seven-piece band and her husky vibrato, Ndegeocello culminates a sound that’s funky, fully layered and enticing. She raps in low, socially conscious, sometimes nasty, sometimes bluesy, always poetic self-expression. And she plays a damn incredible bass.
CML: THE CITY EDITION
May 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello is a tough sell. Skirting the borders between funk, soul, and R&B from rap and ballads to pop, she defies the confines of genres with her deeply artistic music that dares to journey where few modern artists are willing to go. Her soulful, heartbreaking and often alienating songs are modern lamentations on love, loss, pain, pleasure and injustice. She has the courage of her convictions, delivered with a strength and power uncommon in modern female R&B singers. Her new CD Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is a blistering and angry group of funk-inflected and soul-baring tunes that show she's no stranger to heartbreak, rejection and struggle. The experience of the American black woman is present in every bass riff she slaps out and in each word spoken, sung or screamed. With songs like 'Hot Night,' about rejecting rampant consumer culture, Meshell provides emotion and experience that is rare in a world of increasingly shallow music. The title of the CD is telling; this is a thoughtful and thought-provoking look at a personal struggle that, in turn, is a universal one.
GAYWIRED
Nicholas Snow
May 28, 2002
Some music is designed to sell records, while other music is created to transform, and at times, the two collide.
I listened to Meshell Ndegeocello’s new CD before I knew its title or had seen its cover art and was not surprised at all to discover that it’s called Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, featuring an illustration of a Chimpanzee wearing headphones on its cover.
Not only do I predict that Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape will be a commercial success, I fully expect it to sweep many music awards shows, and won’t be surprised when it catapults Ndegeocello into an entirely different dimension of celebrity and acclaim. With all of this said and done, I wasn’t predestined to like this CD, nor am I necessarily a close follower of what is often described as “urban” music. This is good news for Ndegeocello’s label, Madonna’s Maverick Records, as this CD captivates those of us who are lost in the world of MOR and dance remixes.
How can one describe Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape? Let me try: It’s part soul, part R&B, part rap, part jazz, part poetry, part commentary and all transformative. It’s the cure for the common CD, and the antidote for anyone lost in the world of MOR. It’s also the sort of singular work of art one would hope to leave behind when they transist into the next life. Ndegeocello could never record again and still go down in history as one of the world’s great musical artists.
This CD does have a Parental Advisory for Explicit Content, but none of it seems gratuitous. The MF words in "Dead Nigga Blvd." are all part of the poetry, a track which is infused with amazing harmonies and poignant commentary, with more layers than one can count—a musical engineering triumph.
"Hot Night" starts off feeling like some sort of political speech over smooth, rhythmic jazz. “Let’s talk about the world, ya’ll,” Ndegecello chants, and she proceeds to do just that. The track captivates you and commands your attention, not unlike being mesmerized by a painting in one of the world’s great galleries.
"Bla Bla Bla Dyba Dyba Dyba" starts out with a booty call, but the response is “I just want to talk and get to know you before I touch you,” and the song continues, “I ain’t gonna pay your rent. All I got is love and time to spend.” The song certainly offers an alternative to many of the messages in today’s tunes, as does the entire record.
When you read titles such as "Barry Farms" (click here for a link to hear the song!), "Trust," "Akel Dama," "Earth," "Better By The Pound," "Criterion," "Jabril," "6 Legged Griot Trio," and "GOD.FEAR.MONEY," you know this ain’t no ordinary CD. The smooth grooves of "Trust" infuse your body like a fine cognac. The music alone lets you know you’re in for a ride, and then there’s the sizzling lyrics:
Put your tongue in my mouth ~ Make me wet ~ Run your hands down my back ~ Grab my ass ~ Lay me down ~ Spread my legs. ~ Come, tell me, what’s it like, inside me?
If you think the lyrics are hot, you’ve got to hear the music! But let me tell you, the track is very tasteful and classy; the music is the lovemaking, and the lyrics, which are almost unnecessary, describe what is going on. If you have anyone you need to drop hints to, you might want to "Trust" them with this track.
“Earth is satisfied by the fruit of your works” is one message among many on the track "Akel Dama," along with “I beg to be a child born of love,” as well as “I believe in things I cannot see.” And before the song is over, you are cleansed with music and poetry beyond your imagination.
In "Earth," Ndegeocello sings, “Let me be the rain you thirst for. Let me be the sun that you adore...Let my sweet sweet ocean caress your shores. Let your heart search no more.”
I say to you, let Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape quench your soul’s thirst and your body’s hunger for something you may not even know you’re missing—and take a musical journey to places you didn’t know existed, and watch the masses follow. And to Meshell Ndegeocello, I say, you GO girl. Thank you the amazing gift that this CD is.
On the record, this CD is off da hook!
CDNOW
Adam McGovern
May 2002
The album's subtitle may suggest historical artifacts, but Meshell Ndegeocello's sound is more up-to-the-minute than ever—the only thing old about her music is how far back she saw pop-soul's hybrid future coming. On her first album in three years, Ndegeocello's multilingual muse serves up the most unique alchemical mix yet. Call it urban ethereal, grounded in gritty raps and coiled funk rhythms, bolstered by jazz keyboards, soaring vocals, and synthesizers.
Ndegeocello is an ambitious enough melodist to connect a soul reverie with an Afro-Cuban drum coda ("Trust"), R&B balladry with a melismatic Middle Eastern delivery ("Earth"), and a gospel-paced lamentation with noise-rock freak-outs ("Jabril"). Scattered throughout are well-chosen samples from oratorical ancestors including proto-rap poet Gil Scott-Heron and rebel academic Angela Davis.
Ndegeocello herself indulges in social criticism ("Dead Nigga Blvd.," "Hot Night"), mystical revelation ("Akel Dama (Field of Blood)"), and erotic epiphany ("Trust," "Earth"), much of it set to dreamlike electronic textures which, like much of Cookie, are utterly unearthly yet superlatively human.
ESQUIRE
Christopher Berend
March 2002
An Album to Buy: Meshell Ndegeocello (that's N-day-gay-o-chello) gives the gift of peace. She's the kind of singer you listen to in the evening, after work, blood pressure inching back to normal. She perfected this vibe on her 1999 release, Bitter, and it continues on this month's Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape. Ndegeocello mines all influences here, from soul to rock to jazz to hip-hop, for a sound that's as smooth and seamless as her last name isn't.
THE STATE - SOUTH CAROLINA
Michael Miller
May 31, 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello's music is sexual. Her pulse-like rhythms move to the pace of a body in the throes of passion.
Her music is political, too, and the lyrics often cascade forth as scathing indictments of a system that has stifled, manipulated and deceived her race.
Around these two poles swings Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, Ndegeocello's fourth album.
A bass player, singer and songwriter, Ndegeocello (pronounced N-day-gay-O-chello) is a 5-foot-tall, uncompromising dynamo who for the past nine years has made some of pop's most provocative music.
Her 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies, opened the door of rootsy, old-school funk to Erykah Badu, Jill Scott and India.Arie. Ndegeocello's provocative themes, however, have prevented her from earning mainstream success, although she's widely regarded by critics and peers as one of pop's most insightful artists in recent years.
Cookie is another of her no-holds-barred broadsides that deftly blends jazz, funk and hip-hop into an exciting, modern R&B mix. A pulsating, groove-heavy song cycle that pulls no punches, the 16-track disc emits a deep, almost subterranean hiss of steam from beginning to end. The words can at times be graphic and shocking, but they fit snugly in the rhythmic context of the music.
Ndegeocello's bass saunters and chugs, sometimes emitting a single note that lingers and vibrates over an entire verse or chorus. A distorted electric guitar will occasionally come sneaking through, or a piano might add a subtle, unexpected texture. But on the whole, this is a rhythm-based project, centered almost wholly around the deep, rumbling beats that bounce off your chest like buffered Mike Tyson body shots.
The album is bookended by a politically charged manifesto called "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pts 1 & 2.)" Its biting commentary is set to ominous rhythms that are punctuated by monster beats that echo like gunshots in a languid summer night. Powerful messages are also delivered on "Hot Night," "Akel Dama (Field of Blood)" and "Weariness," which all feature sampled comments from activists and poets such as Dick Gregory, Angela Davis, Etheridge Knight and Gil Scott-Heron.
On the sensual side of the coin, Ndegeocello flips us "Pocketbook," "Trust" and "Criterion," the latter verging on full-fledged jazz fusion with a saxophone solo and angular tempo changes.
Ndegeocello cut her teeth on the bouncy funk of Washington's go-go-scene in the late 1980s. She moved to New York in the early '90s and joined Vernon Reid's Black Rock Coalition.
She's played on albums by Alanis Morrisette, Gov't Mule and Citizen Cope, and appeared in John Mellencamp's video for "Wild Night." Through it all, she's played the roles of political activist and fiery funkateer with the grace and assurance of a veteran tightrope walker.
The beauty behind Ndgeocello's art, however, lies in its conviction to individuality and free expression. Cookie is a vibrant example of both, and no matter how you cut it, it will not crumble.
NASHVILLE SCENE
Ben Taylor
June 6-12, 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape: Prince. If he were a woman, the androgynous bisexuality were more than just a stylistic pose, and he had a healthy penchant for sociopolitical themes rather than bizarre religious imagery.
EDMONTON SUN
Mike Ross
June 4, 2002
Love, sex, beauty, religion and politics are the subjects of the latest CD from this impenetrable, incomparable, unpronounceable soul sister—all the stuff your mama told you never to talk about.
EDMONTON SUN
Mike Ross
June 8, 2002
* * * *
"Put your tongue in my mouth and..." er, sorry, we have to censor the next part.
It seems politics and poetry aren't the only topics on the mind of this unpronounceable, incomparable soul queen. Meshell Ndegeocello more or less runs the full gamut of human behaviour on her latest slick CD—sex, drugs, religion and politics, not necessarily in that order—couched in sparse, languid funk tunes driven by deep, deep bass and marked by the sort of sophisticated harmonies that should pretty much guarantee it never gets played on commercial radio. That's OK. This is definitely an album experience. Mixing the language of the street with the language of jazz, Ndegeocello has created an artful soul record rich in messages to challenge your brain, and grooves to make you shake your other end.
PERTH SUNDAY TIMES
September 15, 2002
This fourth album by the sassy bassist/vocalist who brought us the playful pop of "If That's Your Boyfriend" is a must for lovers of the hip-hop and R&B genre. Preferring atmospherics and tricky harmonies to blaring hooks, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape oozes with sensuous vocals, message-driven lyrics and no-nonsense rapping. A deep-soul groove mix crackling with intensity.
NASHVILLE RAGE
Keisha D. Rucker
May 30, 2002
Singer-bassist extraordinaire Meshell Ndegeocello has been off the scene for too long. Her latest effort is a welcome change from 1999's Bitter, a sleeper release that was nondescript, sullen, mournful and garnered but a critical hush.
With this, her fourth album, Meshell reemerges as the multi-faceted dynamo she established herself to be on Plantation Lullabies and Peace Beyond Passion. Here, Meshell is assertively ever the innovator who remains unfazed by industry pressure to conform to a more radio-friendly hodgepodge of bland lyrics and even blander beats.
A delicious blend of go-go, jazz, funk, soul, rock, hip-hop and spoken word, Meshell also carries on her trademark of interspersing social, political, racial, religious and sexual messages in her infectiously and tightly woven compositions.
As she says in her label press release, "It is what I see in the world, what I see in myself; it as much a self-critique as a critique."
With her seven-piece band and alluringly husky voice, all of the songs are wins, but the strongest are the hot-like-fire "Dead Nigga Blvd., Pt. 1," the politically minded "Hot Night," the mellow "Priorities 1-6"...
Oh, let me stop! It's all good. Meshell is back.
Cop it!
NEW YORK BEACON
Steve Stancell
April 10, 2002
At this point, a Meshell Ndegeocello album is supposed to be an excursion. A tour or travel, if you will. I mean, lets face it, she established this precedent with her last three albums—Plantation Lullabies, Peace Beyond Passion and Bitter. Three distinct discs, as far as style goes. Her latest work, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, follows the same tradition. Here, Ndegeocello presents work with a theme that's replete with a vibe from the 1960s Black revolutionary movements in the U.S. (There's even a few recorded speeches from those days of yore, that even yours truly remembers hearing from that time.)
Musically, Ndegeocello has decided to take on the so-called neo-soul genre, which to me, is nothing but improvisational soul and semi-funk music. (Improvisational, for lead vocalists, more so than the musicians per se.)
Ndegeocello's vocal work here, is half spoken word, half song, which works well with this genre of course, and the overall production was by Allan Cato, her long time guitarist. Cookie, is a good disc, but one song in particular, "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)," I feel, should be BLASTED, in Black communities throughout the land. With superb lines like the beginning, "Sell your soul like you sell a piece of ass," and chorus lines like: "You campaign for every Dead Nigga Blvd., so y'all dumb motherfuckers can drive down 'em in your fancy cars. Trying to hold on to some Africa of the past," and, "I no longer blame others for the way that we be," and also, "Everybody trying to make that dollar, Remember when Jesse used to say, 'I am somebody'?"—with lines like that for starters, it's definitely a piece that should be heard and understood by all in those said communities, especially if there's been anybody in there saying, "Nobody's singing about nothing no more in music." Well, this is for them.
NY ROCK
Jeanne Fury
February 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello's Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is part self-portrait, part landscape, part love poem. Whereas her last album, Bitter, was almost unbearably heavy-hearted, hung up on a painful breakup, Cookie finds Meshell exploring her (r)evolution as an emphatic political funkstress and the world that nurtured the process. Sex, life, death, racism, crime, and love are all subject to Meshell's interpretation.
But like any good mix tape, Meshell varies musical styles and features more than one speaker/singer. Cookie deftly combines song with spoken word—the majority of the album is thick on thump, pulse, and loungey rhythms, tempting you to kick back, smoke up, and reevaluate your philosophy of life. That can be a good thing, sure, but at almost 70 minutes long, it can also be a monotonous thing. Yet, the standouts will remind you how Meshell can set it off like no other.
On the opener, "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)," she spits thugged-out rhymes that are angry, probing, and astute. "Hot Night" kicks a bluesy, hip-hop groove, and provides an ideal canvas for the revolutionary soul singer. Although the thick funk groove of "GOD.FEAR.MONEY" (lyrics: "make the world go round and round") is a danceable track, the song ends in gunshots. The free-spirited jazz horns and drums of "Criterion" grab you off-guard, just like the shrieking electric guitar solos in "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 2)."
Cookie is a multi-layered album that tries to tackle an abstract concept through song and poetry. I know people who have written dissertations like this album. Don't let that discourage you, though. While it's not as thrilling as her Plantation Lullabies or Peace Beyond Passion releases, it'll move you, but not in a throw-yo-hands-in-tha-air kinda way.
BUFFALO ARTVOICE
Joe Sweeney
May 30-June 5, 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello is one of the most talented and important musical figures around, each of her recordings exhibiting different shades of inspiration and experience. Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is her newest concoction, yet another burgeoning bud of infectious funk wisdom.
Cookie is the follow up to Ndegeocello’s 1999 album, Bitter, which was a departure for the bassist/singer/songwriter. A painstakingly honest tale of a soured relationship, the album strayed from the sizzling soul of her earlier efforts, garnering the usual critical backlash, even though few have been able to express the fragility of loneliness better.
The new record brings her back to her older form. It lives up to its title, a fluid canvas of sonic statements that taps many musical wells. Like her seminal album, 1996’s Peace Beyond Passion, Cookie is a multi-faceted soul salad, a dance-inducing album filled with reactionary poetry.
Her unflinching lyrical style remains razor-sharp, evidenced by the first track, “Dead Nigga Blvd. (Part 1).” It’s one of many Ndegeocello songs filled with the spirit of the Last Poets, in which Meshell passionately spouts the words “Somebody said our greatest destiny is to become white, but white is not pure, and hate is not pride. Just ‘cause civil rights is law doesn’t mean that we all abide.”
As expected, she continues to explore new musical waters on the record, fusing a greater hip-hop sensibility into her usual blend of funk, R&B, jazz and rock. Ndegeocello shares the mic with the venerable Talib Kweli on “Hot Night,” trading machine-gun rhymes over towering horns and a powerful beat; Missy Elliott and Redman appear on a stellar remix of the first single “Pocketbook.”
While not as mind-blowing as Peace Beyond Passion, or as expressive as Bitter, Cookie is still classic Meshell—as layered as an onion grown from hope, ambition and brilliance.
CVC Report
Meshell Ndegeocello "Pocketbook"
Liz Friedlander, Director
M.S.
June 1, 2002
On this dirty funk track, Meshell Ndegeocello sings to beautiful women who use their looks to put money in their "Pocketbook." The song mixes a hard-edged urban dance beat with tough guitar work. The music adds tension to the singer's smooth delivery and the results sound like a sexual power struggle, with the ladies vying for their share of fame and fortune.
The video is set in a dance club where people groove to the tune. Ndegeocello begins her performance as a DJ at the club and continues as she alternately hangs with the patrons and plays her bass guitar.
She also inserts a dose of social commentary (or good old-fashioned sales sense) when she performs surrounded by bootie girls who have the words "Buy My Record" written on their skimpy outfits.
The video is strung together through a series of seamless transitions.
"Pocketbook" is the debut clip off Ndegeocello's latest CD, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape.
ECHO
Liz Massey
April 25, 2002
Some musicians, when they make a self-reflective album, dredge up more personal drama than anything useful. Not so with Meshell Ndegeocello. Ndegeocello's Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape lets listeners in on her very interesting private world, while introducing them to her thoughts on religion, sexuality, love, and African-American culture.
Ndegeocello, the diminutive woman-loving bassist who rocked both the musical and GLBT worlds with her 1993 debut album, Plantation Lullabies, infuses her latest CD with meditations on many things African-American. The reactions of blacks to capitalist culture, the murder of young black men, the allure of drugs, and the search for an authentic African spirituality are all touched upon. She samples dialog from luminaries such as Angela Davis, Etheridge Knight, Countee Cullen, June Jordan and others.
Meshell's political tracks are sharp and incisive, but never descend to the level of polemic. She ably mixes Davis' critique of capitalist society over the horns and percussion of the salsa-influenced "Hot Night." But the groove in this disc comes from Ndegeocello's love songs. She tells a tale of lesbian teen love scorned ("she couldn't love me without shame... she only needed me for one thing") in "Barry Farms." She introduces herself to a new lover in "Priorities 1-6" by saying, "I ain't gonna pay your rent... all I got is love." The track entitled "Trust" could well become the soundtrack for listeners' next erotic encounter, with a lush, synthesized, instrumental introduction, lyrics hot enough to singe the speakers, and chant-like vocal riffs later.
Cookie draws from a variety of musical styles, including rap, R&B, soul, jazz, blues, funk and rock. Ndegeocello asserts that "It's all Black music, so I use all of it in my palette." She adds guitar, organ, horns, and piano to adjust the "colors" of each piece.
Beneath it all, Meshell underpins each track with her rollicking, at times almost sub-sonic, bass work. Her bass pulses as the heart of this album, which cuts to the heart of who she is.
KING
Michael A. Gonzales
Spring 2002
A self-proclaimed coochie lover with more balls than most contemporary artists, Meshell Ndegeocello walks the fine line between genius and madwoman. While Ndegeocello's 1999 masterwork, Bitter, was much closer to the brutal sensibility of Billie than a billion Badus, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is an exploration of the sounds of black America. From hip-hop ("Dead Nigga Blvd.") to D.C. go-go ("Barry Farms"), mad musical styles are represented. While there are moments of self-indulgence ("Jabril," "Weariness"), this lesbian mack still has a lot of swagger.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Aimee Maude Sims
June 3, 2002
The music is still funky, the groove is still tight, and Meshell Ndegeocello can still slide down a bass string like honey on glass. Still, fans may find her latest disc, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, a little hard to swallow.
Ndegeocello's normally seductive, mellow verses are interspersed with angrier, frenetic rants—explicit lyrics bathed in profanity. It's a major departure from her tender and reflective third release, Bitter.
Fans may also be taken aback by the commercialism of the first single, "Pocketbook." The Missy Elliott-Rockwilder remix is complete with Redman dropping some rhymes and R&B newcomer Tweet adding riffs. It might get her the black radio airplay that has eluded her for years, but it's formulaic.
Even when she gets back to the material we've come to expect from her, it doesn't always work. For example, she samples speeches from the likes of Angela Davis and Gil Scott-Heron to show disdain for capitalism and poverty in America—a gimmicky approach that also comes across as dated.
To be fair, there is balance. "Earth" is the kind of song you'll want to lip sync to your lover by candlelight. And "Better by the Pound" offers the more complex social commentary that fans expect from Ndegeocello.
If she had added more songs like that into the mix, Cookie might have been a little sweeter—and better—album.
OUT
Barry Walters
March 2002
When Meshell Ndegeocello came out fighting with her audaciously funky Plantation Lullabies, she paved the way for today’s out lesbian rockers. Nearly a decade later she’s still pumping heady poetry, velvety vocals, and a vicious bass. Cookie combines the hushed pillow talk of 1999’s Bitter with the confrontational social commentary of 1993’s Lullabies, and the results are, as the record’s subtitle suggests, mixed. Her words once again slice ’n’ dice, but her trippy grooves rarely yield hooks as sharp as her observations. Bold lyrics like “Can’t nobody eat my pussy the way that you do” deserve equally memorable tunes.
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BILLBOARD
Michael Paoletta
June 8, 2002
In Billboard's May 11 issue, neo-soul pioneer Meshell Ndegeocello described her new album this way: "I wanted to show all the transitions, from Southern stride to gospel to blues to funk. Musically, it comes from the African Diaspora. It's my improvisational rhythm and blues, my exploration of self, my anthropological mix tape." Without mincing words, Ms. Ndegeocello knows how to create one wicked "mix tape." Throughout, Cookie crackles with intensity, be it of the sexual, political, or religious kind. Tracks like "Hot Night" and lead single "Pocketbook" are funky sensations. A smoldering track like "Trust" recalls "Do Me Baby"-era Prince, while "Earth" finds the singer-songwriter-bassist deliriously beside herself in Stevie Wonder territory. For those whose minds remain open (and curious), Cookie offers huge rewards.
VIBe
Ayana Byrd
February 2002
* * * *
Meshell Ndegeocello’s fourth album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is an unapologetic blend of sociopolitical commentary and sex talk. Since her 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies, whose sassy single "If That’s Your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night)" was a modest hit, her music has become more intense, multilayered, and honest. Yet, simultaneously, she has faded from the pop-culture radar.
Cookie will do little to get her airplay on BET; but it will speak volumes to those who marvel at Ndegeocello’s uncompromising vision. It’s a collage of treatises on relationships, consumerism, and other substantive matters. On the incendiary "Hot Night," the singer/songwriter/bassist intersperses Angela Davis sound bites with a politically insightful verse by Talib Kweli. In "Priorities 1-6" Ndegeocello has crafted a love song devoid of ego. Her husky, sensual voice aches with vulnerability on the hook: “I just wanna talk and get to know you/ Before I touch you and learn to love you.” "Earth" displays Ndegeocello’s musical gifts. Its two distinct, richly textured musical movements are knitted from a strong bass line with subtle percussive accents woven throughout. Rich in lyrical and sonic brilliance, Cookie provides plenty to stimulate both brains and behinds.
NEWSDAY
Jon Young
July 5, 2002
On her fourth album, Ndegeocello unleashes a staggering torrent of ideas and passions, with the muted funk grooves almost seeming like an afterthought. The bassist and singer has been called a neo-soul pioneer, but she's a category unto herself. Rapping and sometimes singing in a deep, somber voice, Ndegeocello offers blunt observations on sexual politics, racism, materialism and other big issues. Among the highlights: "Trust," an explicit celebration of lust, and the smooth, sweet "Earth." The quiet intensity of Cookie is the perfect antidote to juvenile pop fluff.
NEWSDAY
Glenn Gamboa
July 18, 2002
Speaking of hot, Meshell Ndegeocello's Cookie album is the ultimate in "new hotness," especially with the slamming first single
"Pocketbook" and the Ben Watt remix of "Earth."
USA TODAY
Steve Jones
June 10, 2002
* * * ½
Ndegeocello probably could have gone the commercial route after her lauded 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies. Instead, the singer/songwriter/bassist extraordinaire chose to stay on a course of artistic integrity. Her latest is a funk-fueled treatise on social and sexual politics brimming with intelligence and attitude. Whether she's taking inspiration from the revolutionary words of Angela Davis (Hot Night) or turning up the heat on a more personal level (Priorities 1-6), she rivets you with muscular grooves and blatant honesty. Sexy first single "Pocketbook"—produced by Missy Elliott and Rockwilder and featuring Tweet and Redman—should get the attention of radio. Once fans get a bite of this cookie, they might keep coming back for more.
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
Jeff Wisser
June 16, 2002
* * * ½
If indeed hip-hop is the modern street equivalent of the traditional newspaper, then singer-songwriter-bassist Meshell Ndegeocello delivers a five-star final edition with this brilliantly conceived and played rumination on life as we find it in the year 2002. Making use of everything from Angela Davis speeches to collaborations with Missy Elliott, Tweet and Redman, Ndegeocello produces her most accomplished recording yet.
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Ben Wener
May 31, 2002
A
At the risk of further overhype—thus pushing her to the outskirts of a fringe where those who most need to hear her are rarely found—it must be pointed out that one cannot give a Meshell Ndegeocello album fleeting or half-engaged interest.
Even when they drift into wordless ambient realms, her works never consist of filler or background beats as much of hip-hop and dance music now does. Her music overflows with deliberate provocation, insightful and incisive sociopolitical examinations that, like the best of forebear Gil-Scott Heron and the most profound moments of Prince, play like graduate studies in all facets of modern black life.
Cookie, her fourth, is no exception. If anything, it's a stirring recapitulation of her previous efforts—the dynamic funk of 1993's Plantation Lullabies, the brave self- analysis and poetic outspokenness of Peace Beyond Passion (the best album of 1996) and the languid sensuality of 1999's Bitter. Elements of all three creep into every crevice of what she has described as "a musical and thematic excavation of my own journey, one that I hope others might relate to."
Assuming they're paying attention. As has often been the case throughout pop history, often the most challenging black artists wind up preaching to the converted or the sympathetic, the impact of their weightiest statements dissipating like aerosol sprays. Certainly Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley found ways to bridge emotional entertainment with strident commitment to causes, but they were the exception to the rule.
Jimi Hendrix, Prince, Tracy Chapman, to name only a few—their strongest works were most popular with white audiences, followings that in some instances dwindled the more ideological the artist's music became.
So it is that Cookie may reach only a fraction of the crowd whose behinds still shimmy to early Meshell hits like "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" or "I'm Diggin' You (Like an Old Soul Record)"—which is ironic given that this one contains her steamiest bedroom workouts since that time.
Throughout her latest treatise, she pauses for seriously sultry interludes like "Trust" and "Better by the Pound," urging her listeners to toke up (never has she been so openly pro-cheeba), let "mother earth" expand their minds and libidos and achieve a deeper... um... well, whatever it is you may experience. "There's a tidal wave of mysticism surging through our space-age generation," she says, but she ain't about to explain how or why.
Just go with her flow.
Yet it's her racial and political tropes, whether cutting (the diatribe "Priorities 1-6") or caring (the spiritual triptych of "GOD.FEAR.MONEY" and "Jabril"), that are both enlightening and saddening. Enlightening because, as heard in the opener whose title I can't reprint or the Angela Davis-spiked "Hot Night," she often says what others lack the courage to imagine. Saddening because those she so wants to reach are still too busy helping materialistic nonsense race up the charts.
The honorable futility of which doesn't refuse the musical brilliance of the album. Pouring funk, rock, hip-hop, very real jazz and revived go-go music into a musical meat grinder, she and her sterling support band, the Brethren, squeeze out links of what she dubs improv rhythm and blues, encased in norm-defying commentary, spiritual questing and self-revelation.
She remains one of the most vital artists of the era, and were this one not burdened with some unnecessary remixes at its tail end, it would be her finest album yet.
In any case, it's the deepest listen of the year.
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Michael D. Clark
June 8, 2002
Grade: A-
Before Lauryn Hill and India.Arie began mining the feelings and passions of urban black women for hits, there was Meshell Ndegeocello. Using her electric bass and personal diary, she created a point of view for minority women of ambiguous sexuality.
Her debut album, Plantation Lullabies—one of the most overlooked albums of the '90s—revealed Ndegeocello's world as clever, painful and sometimes humorous. Two follow-up albums were more esoteric in their explorations, but on her latest, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, she rediscovers her spiritual, sexual and political convictions.
The trick, as the title suggests, was to step outside the experiment of her life and write songs untainted by sour feelings and frustration. The approach captures the intensity of her most personal work, as well as the influences of Maya Angelou, Terry McMillan and other influential black writers and orators.
"I ain't really into that pimp and thug mentality," Ndegeocello confides near the beginning of "Priorities 1-6." No, she's not. Ndegeocello is multidimensional. Even as she flirts over the descending modal chords of that song, she cautions, "I ain't gonna pay your rent, 'cuz all I got is love."
"Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)" straddles the line between rap and spoken-word poetry. The tone is that of laying blame; the twist is that Ndegeocello is taking her own community to task.
"Just 'cuz civil rights is law doesn't mean we all abide," she accuses.
Bolstered by speech snippets from civil rights activist Dick Gregory, the song is a bold and controversial statement that will seem revolutionary to some and unfair to others. It's also one of the few times that her words overshadow her slap-hammer bass licks.
Gregory is not the only recorded guest. "Hot Night" is like Crossfire taped in a hot jazz club. Funk beats and fusion breaks surround a discussion of socialism and capitalism with Angela Davis. "Akel Dama (Field of Blood)" features the inspiring words of groundbreaking black poets Gil Scott-Heron, Countee Cullen and Etheridge Knight.
Mostly, however, Cookie is about Ndegeocello absorbing and continuing their work. She's not afraid to acknowledge her attraction to women in graphic terms on "Barry Farms" and "Trust", or follow it with the spiritual "Akel Dama (Field of Blood)." The message is that the body and the heavens are equally sacred. It's the listener's job to deal with that view.
This is an eye-opening socio-political think piece, and an entertaining, occasionally over-ambitious, music program.
FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
Mark Lowry
June 21, 2002
* * * ½
Meshell was reinventing classic soul nearly a decade before the likes of Alicia Keys and India.Arie came along—and doing it better. She remains at the top of the game with Cookie, which uses the best elements of her three previous albums. The funky bass lines and social-reform themes of 1993's Plantation Lullabies returns with songs such as "Dead Nigga Blvd." The religious themes of 1996's Peace Beyond Passion are evident in "GOD.FEAR.MONEY" and the candles-and-incense romance of 1999's Bitter is found in "Trust" and "Earth". One surprise is a remixed version of "Pocketbook" with Missy Elliott, Rockwilder, Redman and Tweet.
THE NEWS AND OBSERVER (Raleigh, NC)
Danny Hooley
June 16, 2002
* * * ½
Meshell Ndegeocello's fourth and finest album begins with these lines from a song called "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)": "You sell your soul like you sell a piece of ass." Right away you know you're in for an unflinching critique of black popular culture.
Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is definitely that, and much more. Its 16 tracks, with the exception of the Missy Elliot/Rockwilder-produced remix of "Pocketbook," are slow, jazz-infused jams. It's not party music; it's head music, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have beats. Like D'Angelo's classic Voodoo, its deep funk may be a little difficult to digest at first, but it never leaves you once it sinks in.
Besides her well-known virtuosity as a bass player, Ndegeocello shines as a singer, MC (check out her slanting rhymes on the Afro-Cuban "Hot Night") and arranger as she attacks capitalism and the prison industrial complex, challenges homophobia ("Barry Farms") and comes up with an irresistible dirty sex classic ("Trust"). In her boldest experiment, she supplements her rich poetry and lyrics on three songs with spoken-word snippets by black luminaries and incarcerated storytellers.
Clearly, Ndegeocello doesn't just want to preach to the converted. However, it's unlikely that the socially conservative audience she hopes to reach, spoonfed sexism and hyper-materialism every day by BET, will regard this bald bisexual as anything but an outsider.
But no serious fan of black music can deny her musical brilliance. Maybe she'll compel just a few young wannabe players to check out, for example, the Angela Davis speech she samples on "Hot Night." The conceivability of that makes Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape even more of a triumph.
PEOPLE WEEKLY
Chuck Arnold
June 10, 2002
Album of the Week: Long before neo-soul sisters like Alicia Keys, Jill Scott and Erykah Badu made it fashionable to fuse funk, jazz, hip hop and retro R&B, Meshell Ndegeocello was there. Ahead of her time in 1993, when she released her visionary debut, Plantation Lullabies, Ndegeocello continues to defy convention on her progressive, provocative fourth album. As the subtitle suggests, she deftly integrates influences from her black-music forebears, ranging from the psychedelic soul of Jimi Hendrix to the prerap spoken-word commentary of Gil Scott-Heron (who is sampled here). Her powerful lyrics—which she alternately speaks and sings in her sultry, husky timbre (think female Barry White)—veer from sharp social observation to sexual candor informed by her gay experiences. The music—anchored by Ndegeocello's thumping bass—constantly challenges with its tempo shifts and multilayered arrangements that are anything but Cookie clutter. Bottom line: Masterful Meshell.
LAS VEGAS CITY LIFE
Kari O'Connor
May 16, 2002
What is downright cool about Meshell Ndegeocello, besides the fact that she plays the bass, is that she'd already set herself apart from the new batch of humble nu-soul sisters back in the early '90s when she mixed the politics of black America with the politics of sex.
Other artists lose sight of those themes during their careers, but Ndegeocello hasn't on Cookie, starting with the commentaries of "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Part 1)," straight into the headbobbing declarations of the horn-spiced "Hot Night," featuring the machine-gun delivery of Black Star's Talib Kweli.
"I ain't really into none of that pimp and thug mentality," she breathes on "Priorities 1-6," an answer back to the Destiny's Child school of what's necessary in relationships. From there, Cookie gets slower, more improvisational and more intense, the heartbeats of "Akel Dama (Field Of Blood)" pumping in and out of time with a spoken word delivery and a small electronic palette.
Ndegeocello is that one girl at the party who won't say a word until someone is curious enough to approach her, and then you can't walk away from her because she will be heard.
PLANET
Hilary Nichols
Spring 2002
Click here to read the full review.
CHART ATTACK
Paul Gangadeen
June 4, 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello was the first hint many years back, that soul music would return and now she's returned to stake her claim as a key player. It's all here — the smooth grooves, the fat bass sound and style and the slippery and subdued lyrics dealing with love and sex. Despite all of this, something seems to be missing. Everything works in relation to itself, but as far as the bigger picture is concerned, the songs get lost. There's nothing overly attractive or catchy in terms of melody or hooks. You can hear the influences of Stevie Wonder, Prince and George Clinton which makes for a trip with potential, but by the disc's end, you still haven’t found it. Seems to be all about the journey, not the end result.
ONE WORLD
Marcus Reeves
February/March 2002
After a two-year hiatus, bassist-singer Meshell Ndegeocello makes a poetic return with Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape. Mixing funk, politics, spoken word and a Latin pulse, Meshell gets deep like a river (thanks Langston), singing and speaking on such topics as self-destruction ("Dead Nigga Blvd. Pt1 & 2"), materialism ("GOD.FEAR.MONEY") and lesbian love ("Barry Farms").
GIRLFRIENDS
Lori Selke
March 2002
Grade: A
Click here to read the full review.
ALLENTOWN MORNING CALL
Joe Warminsky, III
June 15, 2002
There are few discs more depressing than Meshell Ndegeocello's 1999 confessional Bitter, so give thanks that the singer-bassist has returned to the brainy, confrontational R&B that fueled her early 1990s career. Her fourth disc, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, isn't an emotional breakthrough, though. Ndegeocello is most comfortable when smoldering, and this time around, she burns through slow, sometimes jazzy grooves while longing quietly for a social revolution that probably won't happen. At times, Cookie has the air of an African-American studies class, with samples of Dick Gregory, Angela Davis and other black luminaries serving as touchstones. Ndegeocello's own lyrics are less didactic, however, and despite Cookie's obvious irritation and disappointment with urban reality, the sounds are gentle, leaving room for interpretation.
PHILADELPHIA GAY NEWS
Gilbert Garcia
June 7-13, 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello is a rare sort of artist. As much a poet and social commentator as she is a musician and singer. Ndegeocello is one of the few musicians whose knowledge equals her talent.
Her first album, 1993's Plantation Lullabies, introduced her as a hard-grooving bass-playing funk princess—a sexy androgynous firebrand. From then on, though, that image changed.
Her follow-up, 1996's Peace Beyond Passion, revealed the brilliance of the mind behind the music. A concept record of sorts, the album addressed prejudice throughout history, a pretty heavy mission for a funk album.
Bitter, released in 1999, showed Ndegeocello in yet another light—neither the tough talking rapper or the political critic, but a romantic. True to its name, the album was surprisingly sentimental, featuring meticulously arranged jazz-inspired love songs.
Ndegeocello's newest album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is probably the best of her career so far, and certainly the most representative of her best talents. A wild mix of jazz, funk, R&B, and hip-hop, the disc makes no differentiation between styles, fusing them all into a unique sound all her own.
The album starts out heavy, with the gritty "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt 1)." Ndegeocello quick-thumping bass provides the perfect accompaniment to her staccato quasi-rap vocal style. Taking its name from the tradition of naming streets after dead black leaders, the song is a well-informed criticism of black society's complicity in its own plight.
Comparisons to such black music figures as pre-rap innovator Gil Scott-Heron are easily made, although it's true that Heron has never sounded this funky.
The Cuban-inspired "Hot Night" follows in the same political vein, with Ndegeocello sampling '60s activist Angela Davis speaking on Vietnam, capitalism and the impossible situations poor women face in American society. This type of sampling continues throughout the record, with Ndegeocello selecting snippets from obscure black poets and leaders.
A short track of what sounds Meshell taking a booty-call, detours the record into its next phase: a set of raw sexy tracks that still make intellectual points despite their raunchiness. "Priorities 1-6" sounds like a typical smoky R&B groove, but the lyrics show that despite the sexual frankness. Ndegeocello still finds female materialism an impediment to a strong relationship.
"Pocketbook" makes much the same case, reviving the pimp and prostitute stereotype, while on "Barry Farms," she calls out a woman who "couldn't love me without shame."
The album's final phase takes the music to a spiritual plane. Tracks with titles like "Akel Dama (Field Of Blood)" and "Earth" feature spare jazz arrangements, sounding remarkably like the music of fellow funk progeny Prince. Angular harmonies and syncopated drumming take center stage here, with the music sounding more like some fusion of rock and bee-bop before the album's final reprise of the opening track with "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 2)."
By Ndegeocello's own admission, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape tries to span the entire history of black music, as its title might suggest, and it does so surprisingly well. Although the best tracks here are still those featuring Ndegeocello's signature dense funky bass and rapping, she also proves remarkably able to vary styles without diluting her message. In fact, at no previous time has her message been clearer than on this record.
With Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, Ndegeocello places herself in the unique place of being a musician with a vision to contribute to society, a poet laureate of black and queer culture, if you will.
This album enlightens as it entertains,—again no small feat for a funk record. Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is a crowning achievement for Ndegeocello, and will likely only be topped in style and substance by whatever she releases next.
SISTER 2 SISTER
Mary McKenzie
April 2002
"Barry Farms" listed as one of the Top 5 Jams
Funky guitar riffs and thumping drums are Meshell's signature sound. She pulls no punches in this tune named after a well known Washington, DC, housing project. It's a story of forbidden love and that "on the side" relationship that may happen more than people care to admit. Musically, she is a force to be reckoned with, and when she says "You need to teach your boy to do that," she's bearing her soul almost completely and giving us a glimpe deeper inside than she's ever done before.
FLAUNT
Tom Lanham
February 2002
Cookie is a vibrant, visceral effort, layered with her lissome slap'n'pluck fretwork and deep, sensual murmur. And she makes no secret of her political convictions on tracks like, "Hot Night," "GOD.FEAR.MONEY," and the below-poverty-level lament "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pts 1 & 2)," upping the heartfelt ante with speech snippets from black activist icons like Dick Gregory, Angela Davis and Gil Scott-Heron. (more)
PAPER
Simona Rabinovitch
February 2002
Ndegeocello, the socially conscious, Grammy-nominated singer, bassist, and spoken-word-meets-nu-jazz songwriter, ventures far beyond the usual wake-up calls on her fourth album. Constructed around irresistible R&B grooves, the record resurrects the spirits of soul, funk, jazz, and gospel: "Pocketbook" features a blues-inspired bassline; "Jabril" plays on the gospel tip; and "Dead Nigga Blvd." combines a provocative spoken-word narrative with an aching guitar riff courtesy of co-producer Allen Cato. And that's to say nothing of the artist's palpable sexuality. Ndegeocello doesn't camouflage desire with ambiguous lyrics. She tells it like it is, sharing honest stories of longing, sex, and self-awareness, punctuated by flirty licks of both tongue and bass. But candor notwithstanding, Cookie's magnificence lies in it's beats. Backed by a seven-piece band, Ndegeocello sounds like she's leading an improvisational jam session in a smoky bar, at once uplifting and real.
TULSA WORLD
Thomas Conner
May 8, 2002
It's all black music, truth be told. Hip-hop, soul, jazz, funk, rock 'n' roll, even spoken-word poetry—white corporations make the most money off all of it, but it's all native and co-opted black culture.
Meshell Ndegeocello said as much upon the release of her latest CD. It's her fourth and she's still the most groundbreaking black female artist out there, her style-bending innovations pre-dating Erykah Badu, D'Angelo and India.Arie.
The title points to the personal exploration that preceded these songs and the collage nature of the collected results. Always forthright and outspoken, on Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, Ndegeocello wields her no-nonsense allure to address love and politics with the same seamless grace as Stevie Wonder, to get inside the inconsistencies and hypocrisies of policy and psalms with the boldness of Prince.
"Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)" addresses the futility of campaigns that rename city streets after late black political figures while leaving living conditions unchanged. "Jabril" steadfastly refuses to celebrate the names of Tupac, Biggie and others who lived—and thus died—by violence.
Her last two records have been pretty mellow; now she's back with an attitude.
A master bass player, Ndegeocello gravitates to funky and soulful grooves, but she composes her songs not unlike another Promethean bassist: Mingus. Just as the entire history of jazz and the African-American struggle seemed compacted into his fingertips, so the long legacies of 20th-century black pop music seem to thump and slide across her strings.
If Peace Beyond Passion was her Pithecanthropus Erectus, Mingus' musical metaphor for pride before the fall, Cookie is her Let My Children Hear Music, an album of self-discovery so unmerciful as to be almost overwhelming.
Here she offers up Latin horns, loved-up organ, prog-rock blasts, slick R&B rhythms, bluesy moans and wails, snappy hip-hop homilies. Like real education, it takes some repeat listening—some study—and when it finally cuts through, it's a reward that can never be taken away from you.
JANE
Jeff Johnson
January/February 2002
Grade: 3/4
There's a scene in Heathers that goes like this: A disrobing frat boy complains to his date, "Save the speeches for Malcolm X, I just wanna get laid." The guy is a dumb ass, of course, but his comment mirrors the sentiment that has fractured most of the R&B community for, like, forever. There's political music, there's music to screw to, and in between there's a massive void. This CD solves the problem, Meshell wants to tell you why things are screwed up, and if she can get you in the sack in the process, then that's cool, too.
THE SOURCE
Akiba Solomon
February 2002
Whether you pledge allegiance to Meshell Ndegeocello's revolutionary blend of funk, go go, rock and hip-hop or you think she's a self righteous windbag, her grooves get to you. (Just ask Brian McKnight, who jacked her classic "Outside Your Door" for "Anytime.")
Her fourth and perhaps most accessible album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape will pull more folks over to her Black-hand side. This album is a departure from the esoteric inner dialogue she passes off as songs. Gone is the unapologetic bisexual warrior queen with the contradictory personal politics we heard on Plantation Lullabies. Ditto for the Bitter lovesick sister with the sadistic streak.
The singer/songwriter/band leader instead explores love, sex, spirituality and ghetto politics with refreshing candor. For example on "Dead Nigga Blvd," she reveals, "No longer do I blame others for the way that we be/ 'Cause niggas need to redefine what it means to be free." Talib Kweli joins the self-proclaimed revolutionary soul singer on the exhilarating "Hot Night," a salsa-infused foray into hip-hop production.
Minus "Akel Dama (Field Of Blood)," an overwrought mishmash of poems by Gil Scott-Heron, Countee Cullen and Etheridge Knight, Cookie represents the best of Ndegeocello: funky high art for the ghetto masses.
EBONY
Lynn Norment
March 2002
The multitalented , multidimensional Meshell Ndegeocello is back with her third recording, Cookie: The Anthropological Mix Tape, and it is sure to win new listeners while delivering an invigorating set to her devoted fans. Meshell sets her lyrics about sex, love, religion, politics and beauty to “improvisational rhythm and blues,” which results in a stew of funk, soul, spoken word, jazz, rock & roll and hip-hop. Backed by her outstanding five-piece band, The Brethren, the cutting-edge artist and accomplished bassist offers a great mix of songs, including “Pocketbook,” “GOD.FEAR.MONEY” and “Hot Night.” Among guest artists are Talib Kweli, Caron Wheeler, Lalah Hathaway and Marcus Miller.
EBONY
Lisa Wente
Columbus, Ohio
May 2002
I was very happy to see Lynn Norment's timely review of Meshell Ndegeocello's new album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, in the March 2002 "Sounding Off" column. Ndegeocello is an amazing artist who is often overlooked by publications targeting predominantly Black audiences, and I'm pleased that EBONY is not one of them. I must, however, point out an error in the review. This is her fourth solo recording, not her third. Her previous three recordings are Plantation Lullabies (1993), Peace Beyond Passion (1996), and Bitter (1999).
WINDY CITY TIMES
Gregg Shapiro
June 26, 2002
The highly anticipated and much delayed new CD by Meshell Ndegeocello finds the well admired bass player, singer and songwriter returning to the funkier grind of her first two discs on Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape. Like Madonna, the musical maverick on whose record label she records, Ndegeocello is not known for shying away from controversy, and Cookie serves it up, warm and gooey. From the spoken-word rap of opening track "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)," in which Ndegeocello declares, "You sell your soul/like you sell a piece of ass," and then goes on to make reference to civil rights, Jesse Jackson, human rights, property rights, and holding on "to an Africa of the past," among other things. Politics, sexual and otherwise, are at the very heart of this "anthropological mixtape," from the perspective of a seductive "revolutionary soul singer" on "Hot Night," "Priorities 1-6," "Pocketbook," "Barry Farms," "Earth," and "Better By The Pound," to name a few.
INDEPENDENT WEEKLY (Durham)
Farnum Brown
June 26, 2002
Meshell Ndegeocello was mixing conscious lyrics, hip-hop aesthetics and neo-soul vocal stylings long before Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu or Jill Scott. Way back in 1993, her Plantation Lullabies drew the template these later and more commercially successful artists would follow. While they have been blessed with the greenbacks, Meshell remains artistically non-pareil.
Indeed, I would argue that Meshell Ndegeocello synthesizes the scope and history of black music more successfully than any other artist at work today. From gospel to go-go, funk to soul, hip hop to jazz, blues to balladry, her music seamlessly weaves these threads into something that feels, well, important in a way very little pop music does these days.
Her 1996 masterpiece, Peace Beyond Passion, coiled Meshell's sinuous bass playing and confessional lyrics around blaxploitation guitars and Joshua Redman's knotty tenor sax lines. Bitter, her more acoustic 1999 offering, was an elegaic rumination on love and faith lost.
Meshell's latest release, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, is a thicker joint that takes "bass is the place" as its working motto. Bottom-heavy and happy about it, Cookie's 16 cuts pare Meshell's vast musical vocabulary with her various personal and political concerns. "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)" is a wicked rip on thug life and its depredations while "Pocketbook" swings with insouciance through a woman's search for balance.
Scattered liberally throughout the songs are recorded snippets, long and short, of Angela Davis, Gil Scott-Heron, June Jordan and various other poets and politicos. As it invariably will, this technique interrupts the aesthetic space of "song" and pushes the proceedings into another sphere, something more like spoken-word with musical accompaniment.
And that, in fact, is the central gambit of Cookie, which listens more like a scrapbook or sketchbook than a collection of well-formed songs. It's interesting, even compelling, but also sprawling and meandering and lacking the shapeliness of her earlier works. Devotees will go with it, but for those seeking an introduction to Meshell, Peace Beyond Passion remains her high water mark.
COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Rob Messinger
June 20, 2002
* * *
In 1999, Ndegeocello turned her scalpel-edged mind inward to expose herself on the intensely personal album Bitter. Three years later, she has returned to a more familiar pose: provocateur. As if to slap any comfort out of listeners' heads, she opens Cookie with "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1)," a song with lyrics as intense as its title: "Just cuz civil rights is law doesn't mean that we all abide/ Tell me, are you free?" she asks over a bumping bass line.
Cookie is a serious record that takes on racism, politics, sexuality and a host of other Big Thoughts, but that doesn't stop Ndegeocello from having fun on tunes such as "Hot Night," a sweaty song complete with Cuban-style horns and a hip-shaking chorus. Her quest for diversity (she sings, raps, plays funk bass, jazz, rock and hip-hop) does come with a price; halfway through Cookie, she lets the momentum ebb for a couple of blue-hued jazz songs. Even at 75 percent success, though, Cookie is a wonderfully filling treat for the soul.
BARNES & NOBLE
Tracy E. Hopkins
May 2002
Throughout her groundbreaking career, Meshell Ndegeocello has never minced words, and her musically and lyrically bold fourth disc, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, is no exception. Here, she unabashedly puts her opinions to the fore, mocking the music industry's reliance on cookie-cutter knockoffs with the album's title and chastising her fellow African-Americans' materialistic ways on the funky political anthem "Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pt. 1.)" "You sell your soul like you sell a piece of ass," chides the soul singer, whose music helped pave the way for neo-soul superstars such as Erykah Badu and D'Angelo. But instead of alienating her target audience, Ndegeocello draws them in with tough love. After all, her goal is to elevate black consciousness. "Remember what Jesse used to say," she adds, "I am somebody." But whether she's waxing poetic about race ("Dead Nigga Blvd. (Pts. 1 and 2)"), religion (the explosive "Jabril"), love (the ballad "Earth"), or sex (the explicit "Trust"), it's Ndegeocello's passion for her subject matter and her music that makes The Anthropological Mixtape such a moving listen. She backs up her polemics with a rich musical tapestry that interweaves funk, rock, soul, hip-hop, jazz, go-go, and spoken word. Perhaps in an effort to garner the mainstream success that has eluded her thus far, she collaborates with several popular urban artists, including progressive MC Talib Kweli on the Latin-tinged "Hot Night" and sultry songbird Tweet and raunchy rapper Redman on the Rockwilder/Missy remix of "Pocketbook." But Ndegeocello, with her deep, seductive vocals and intoxicating, Prince-inspired bass and guitar licks, is the real star of the show. In fact, not since Prince (and Sly Stone before him) has contemporary soul music been blessed with an artist so unafraid to express her bad, black self. And for her fearless creativity, her fans are truly grateful.
LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
Heather Wood
June 2, 2002
* * *
NdegéOocello's social activism continues on this, her fourth album. Anchored as always by a funky, phat bass line, the sultry songwriter spits poetry about the quest for inner peace ("Hot Night," "Priorities 1-6"), raps furiously about racial injustices ("Dead Nigga Blvd.") and sings sweetly about love ("Earth").
In the past, NdegéOocello has borrowed from her literary and musical heroes; this time she samples them directly, inviting Gil Scott-Heron, Angela Davis and Lalah Hathaway (channeling father, Donny) to the party. As always, the result is poignant poetry with a danceable beat, but Meshell is still stuck in the same anger zone. After 19 tracks of acute examination of everything that's wrong with the world, one yearns for a peppy pop record.
UR CHICAGO
Mikael Wood
June 6-July 4, 2002
Meshell NdegéOocello's probably got the time—she's been a well respected critical darling since her 1993 debut—but as an African-American gay woman in an increasingly unstable America, she's got plenty of reasons to look for a unique way into R&B. On Cookie: The Anthropoligical Mixtape, her fourth album, she sounds like she's married a mix-and-match sparkle to a seemingly improvisational approach. The record plays out like a laidback night at some after-hours club where the clientale is equally comfortable talking about bi-curious women, ghetto politics and Angela Davis rhetoric, Ndegeocello's always-funky bass-playing providing a bedrock for an array of loose-limbed keyboards, samples and guest spots by Talib Kweli and Gil Scott-Heron. If the conspicuous absence of contemporary R&B's immediate appeal sunds like a willful move towards obstinance, maybe that's life talking.
CINCINNATI CITYBEAT
Kathy Y. Wilson
May 16-22, 2002
Grade: A
"You sell your soul like you sell a piece of ass/ Slave to the dead white leaders on paper," snorts Meshell Ndegeocello. She's driving us down "Dead Nigga Blvd (pt 1)," the opening thunder to a maelstrom of low-end theories and literal lyrical truths. This album is bling-bling in reverse. She turns face down on a bed of truth Jay-Z, P. Diddy, Ludacris, et. al., and every woman idolizing their man/child jisms and sticks it to 'em in their intellect.
Yeah, she's got game and she talks mad shit to sistas. However, she's exchanging ideas, not bodily fluids.
"I ain't gonna pay your rent/ All I got is love and time to spend," she coos on "Priorities 1-6."
Ingeniously, Ndegeocello uses soundbites from Angela Davis ("Hot Night"), Gil-Scott Heron and Countee Cullen ("Akel Dama (Field of Blood)") to make this point: To realize the fullness of themselves, blacks gotta bust a cap in self-hatred. But the Funk is so deep, she delivers her messages much like Prince and every incarnation of Parliament/Funkadelic. Folks thinking they're in it just to shake that ass have another thing coming. Head noddin' is an affirmation and by listening, she's betting you'll be in agreement or at least in thought.
Ndegeocello this time lays her burdens down and sticks to issues of Mother Nature and Father Nurture, choosing not to internalize every bad relationship of the past. In "Barry Farms," she deconstructs a tale/tail about class and gender among Negroes. She tells on young girls who fuck other women on the down-low, but hang at the club with the brothas with cars and money. "Can't nobody eat my pussy the way that you do," the girl whispers in her ear. "But you should teach your boy to do that," Ndegeocello shoots back.
Her music is not for liars or escapists. That's precisely what makes it necessary and what gets it left off black radio playlists.
Be a revolutionary. Listen to this record.
WINNIPEG SUN
Darryl Sterdan
June 7, 2002
* * *
Three years after turning inward on her soulful 1999 breakup record Bitter, singer-bassist Meshell Ndegeocello is back to thinking globally.
Her fourth CD Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape is a politically charged examination of the inequalities and divisions of contemporary society—racism, sexism, poverty, drugs and all the other usual suspects. But while the lyrics to tracks like "Dead Nigga Blvd.", "Pocketbook" and "Akel Dama (Field of Blood)" are aimed at the head, the loose 'n' lazy jazz-funk grooves beneath them are designed to get the hips moving.
Indeed, most of these tracks are funkier than anything Prince has churned out lately—and X-rated ballads like "Trust" are sweatier than anything he's done since his Lovesexy days. Obviously, Meshell isn't having any more trouble in the love department.
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
Kevin O'Hare
June 14, 2002
* * *
Uncompromising and unmistakable, Meshell Ndegeocello has been blending her brilliant bass-playing with vibrant, neo-soul splashes of funky self-expression since her 1993 breakthrough, Plantation Lullabies.
This fourth album finds her in a determined state, interspersing quotes from Angela Davis and talking on about the plight of the revolutionary soul singer on the scorching "Hot Night," weaving in lines from Gil Scott-Heron in "Akel Dama (Field of Blood)," and just as easily switching the groove into pure eroticism on tracks like "Barry Farms" and the slow and lusty "Trust."
There's a seamless feel to the aptly titled Mixtape, with spoken-word sections fading into funky rhythms, falling straight into dream-spinning soundscapes. Ndegeocello's dusky voice and deep bass fall in the center of it all, though she gets help from rapper Redman and rising singer Tweet on an effective remix of the lead single "Pocketbook," which lands here in two very different but equally engaging forms.
Sounding as fiercely independent as ever, this isn't as accessible as some of Ndegeocello's earlier works, but her artistic vision remains right on target.
THE ADVOCATE
Larry Flick
July 9, 2002
Most artists issue a statement of musical purpose on their first recording. Not Meshell Ndegeocello. She waited until her fourth studio go-round to provide unobscured insight into the influences that set her grooves in motion. On Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape she lays her cards on the table, and in the process she lays herself more emotionally bare than any of her female R&B contemporaries.
It’s been somewhat easy to peg Ndegeocello since her auspicious 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies. She was a retro-savvy funkateer with an earthy demeanor and a slicingly sharp tongue. But while early singles like “If That’s Your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night)” were full of free-spirited sass and spunk, they betrayed her sensitive, somewhat embattled and embittered side—as evidenced on her subsequent efforts, most notably 1999’s Bitter.
And while listeners have been given glimmers of Ndegeocello’s psyche, both musical and personal, she gathers everything into one cohesive piece on Cookie, which she produced with her longtime guitarist Allen Cato. The result is a provocative if occasionally overwhelming journey.
Sharp ears will detect the influence of artists including Richie Havens, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, Joan Armatrading, and Prince—neatly interwoven into rhythms that are occasionally derivative of current hip-hop sounds. Along the way, Ndegeocello floats tales about the struggles of African-American women, abused women, politics, sex, and poverty. She’s brash in her language and unflinching in her candor, making proverbial mincemeat of other so-called no-nonsense soul mamas like Angie Stone and Mary J. Blige. This is realness without posturing, Afro puffs, or designer duds. This is raw—brutally so, at times.
And this is where Ndegeocello risks losing listeners. Sometimes she’s so deeply intense that she threatens to suck the air out of the room. There’s little to no humor here, nor are there moments to simply breathe and digest all that’s served. In fact, there are moments when Cookie is so serious that you can almost hear Ndegeocello’s jaw clench tightly from trying so hard to declare the importance of her work. When she simply lets her story and grooves unfurl naturally, as she does on jams like the swaggering “Better by the Pound” and the gentle “Trust,” Ndegeocello is beyond comparison and criticism.
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Tom Moon
June 9, 2002
* * ½
Meshell Ndegeocello begins her fourth album with rhetorical guns blazing, observing what she sees as a sad state of affairs in American culture, making big noise about revolution.
Rapping resolutely and singing almost apologetically, the bassist and songwriter, appears determined to school listeners about the inequality and rampant injustice going down everywhere. She drops pointed polemics about the advertising machine and the misplaced priorities of African Americans, and on the single "Pocketbook," perhaps the most street-savvy of this too-long affair's 15 tracks, she tactfully sets financial limits on an opportunistic paramour.
But a funny thing happens around track six: Ndegeocello becomes preoccupied with sex. As she recounts trysts with manly men and stolen moments with manipulative women, the musical environments, so taut at the start, go all Quiet Storm goopy. "Barry Farms" and "Trust" are little more than ambient settings for hot-and-bothered aural foreplay.
Though the music is competent, its room-temperature ambience blunts the message of everything that follows, including the ancestors-are-important spoken-word reverie "Akel Dama." It takes forever for her to climb out of the satin-sheets torpor, and when she does, she has indulged in so much inconsequential one-chord funk vamping that it's hard to heed what she intends to be a wake-up call.
WASHINGTON POST
Ta-Nehisi Coates
July 3, 2002
Before Erykah Badu, before Maxwell, before D'Angelo, there was Meshell Ndegeocello, for almost 10 years a healthy alternative for airwaves overrun by the likes of Bell Biv Devoe, and later Total.
Although Ndegeocello will always be first in the realm of neo-traditional R&B, there are now many who have done it better. The enemy of neo-soul crooners has always been boredom (see Groove Theory), but the cream of the category rises to the top through sheer power of voice (Jill Scott) or power of production (Angie Stone). Unfortunately, on her latest outing, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, Ndegeocello has neither of these factors working for her.
Ndegeocello has always been an artist who lived or died by the music backing her. Her husky voice, though distinct, was never particularly captivating. On Mixtape, Ndegeocello's tracks don't pick up the slack. Things start off interestingly enough with the upbeat "Hot Night," which features a sample from an Angela Davis speech. But after that, from "Priorities 1-6" to "Jabril," Mixtape becomes a slow, droning soundtrack for an insomniac. It's not that Ndegeocello doesn't attempt to make the album interesting—all manner of instrumentation is enlisted, from keyboards to electric guitar riffs, but little emerges from the combinations.
Typical is "Barry Farms," a song that deserves credit for actually having parts, and being more than a loop. Yet the assemblage of parts never equals any moving whole. "Pocketbook" mixes spoken word and singing, but the throbbing bass line obscures Ndegeocello's voice. Likewise, "Akel Dama" features Ndegeocello doing spoken word, but the sample of Gil Scott-Heron's voice at the start of the cut is more distinctive than hers.
Ndegeocello has earned a reputation as a dynamic performer with a crack band that really demonstrates what music has lost in its rush to the synthesizer. But somehow the transition isn't made on Mixtape; the energy and passion of Ndegeocello live do not transfer here.
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