Pride Guide 2002
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE A-9
Free as a bird
Me'shell Ndegeocello kicks off her new album in Cleveland
by Derek Poindexter
Me'shell Ndegeocello was the first female artist signed to Madonna's Maverick Records. She scored hits with both her first release off of Plantation Lullabies, "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" and a single with John Mellencamp covering Van Morrison's "Wild Nights." The bisexual bassist has toured with Prince, has a scheduled appearance on the Tonight show and just released her fourth CD, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, on June 4.
She was at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
'Don't let the radio define your personality.'
in Cleveland for a concert on May 22, and took time to talk about her life.
Ndegeocello (Swahili for "free as a bird") used to have a couple of lucrative endorsement deals, but backed off from being a corporate face.
"I don't endorse anything [now]," she said, noting that she's about getting her music out to the people. Grabbing a fruit salad just before the free show, her mantra seemed to be "Is it time to play yet?"
Diminutive in stature, she is a laid back, outspoken, humble, introspective person who thrives on being able to be an artist without constraints. She has been marketed as both a monster bassist and as an artist, vocalist and rapper.
When asked how she saw herself, she replied, "I'm human being, a carbon-based modern life form trying to survive in this great society."
Unlike other artists who have been manipulated by their labels to fit into a category,
Ndegeocello basks
in the reality that the label has been very hands-off with her. "They leave me alone," she noted. "I have the greatest opportunity, more than most people."
All one has to do is think of George Michael suing Sony records for control over his career or Prince's struggle with Warner Brothers (NdegeOcello's distribution company), or even Mariah Carey's multi-million dollar buyout from Virgin
Records. None of
this seems to have trapped her.
"The only thing I'm trying to get out to people is don't let the radio define your personality," NdegeOcello confided.
Even her sexuality has not been an issue, not that she doesn't sing about it.
"Being a person of color, our whole existence is to improvise, not just musically, but in society in general," she said. "[Can you] make your own way to get through the changes?"
When she was first signed in 1993, her mix of musical styles made her more of an oddity. But today, with artists like India Irie, D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, and Maxwell, she isn't alone any more. Ndegeocello, however, can do what they can't: She can let her playing do her talking. She has a band capable of building the canvas for her to paint upon.
When performing onstage, “I get inside myself."
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Me'shell Ndegeocello
friends, this isn't a pick up band . . . this is what we do. This is a collection; this is a socialist experience. There is so much music. I'm just open to anything and that's why my mind is open."
As she rose from the table to join her dining band, she looked back and said, "[You better] write about my music. [Now] as a matter of fact I'm gonna go over there, I gotta show 'em something." And show 'em she did, this funky answer to Ani DiFranco. She just gets on stage and is transfixed, eyes closed as if peering into some inner sheet music.
The first single on her new CD, “Pocketbook," produced by Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, also features rapper Redman and Elliott protégé Tweet. The rest of the CD features smooth jazz influenced R & B with her deep voice and soulful bass playing. If Gil Scott-Heron (who appears on the CD) had a daughter, this is what she'd sound like.
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