Reminded that Meshell Ndegeocello is The Greatest

Friday is fun, links, playlists…music! Today, an appreciation of one of the greatest artists of the last 30 years: Meshell Ndegeocello

I was reminded — in an instant — that Meshell Ndegeocello is the greatest.

The clip (above) of her recent Tiny Desk might be enough to convince you too. And even if it’s not, I still recommend you take some part of your Friday, or your weekend, to experience this. It’s everything good about music to me, specifically everything great about a musical performance. The songs from this concert are all brand new (save for the final track, an old favourite). There’s a brand new album coming in a couple of months, and this is the debut of some of the material. It’s another new sound for Ndegeocello. Part of who she is, an extension of her soul, and of course a whole new dimension every time too.

I first heard her music in the mid-90s, not quite when he debut album was released but shortly after. And I was hooked instantly. Initially what sold me was her bass playing. But she’s a keyboardist, singer, rapper, producer, spoken-word artist, and multi-instrumentalist. She’s also, likely, the immediate antecedent for the neo-soul movement that gave us Erykah Badu and Jill Scott and D’Angelo and Angie Stone and a few others…

If That’s Your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night) is the hooky single from her brilliant debut album, Plantation Lullabies. This clip above is her first TV appearance (intro’d by a fresh-faced Jon Stewart).

But Meshell had her biggest (early) success in collaborations — she duetted with John Mellencamp on a Van Morrison cover.

She was called on to play bass on a Madonna song, eventually adding vocals as a replacement rapper for Tupac.

And in and around these high-profile guest nods, she started getting songs on movie soundtracks, and appearing on other intriguing albums (Guru’s follow-up Jazzmatazz record) and continuing to release her own music too.

I loved 1996’s Peace Beyond Passion. And 1999’s Bitter. And that was it for a bit. I guess my ears were elsewhere. And then, back in the music store, and finding all sorts of music to play, I heard her first significant evolution across two brilliant records, one more hip-hop (2002’s Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape), one Sade-styled soul fused with stoner jams (Comfort Woman).

It was around this time that I started hearing her as a jazz bass player too, appearing on recordings by Joshua Redman, and Robert Glasper, sometimes called in for a guest vocal (Pat Metheny, Blind Boys of Alabama) or just generally contributing interesting covers to the world, via tribute albums, or for projects connected to her activism.

And there was rock and reggae in her sound too. Whether reflected on her own albums or in her appearances with others. She even went full-blown jazz (2005’s The Spirit Music Jamia: Dance of the Infidel) and welcomed guest vocalists into the fold, even though she’s a brilliant singer in her own right.

Go back to the top and watch that Tiny Desk performance (I’ve linked it there again) and you’ll see a musician so focussed on the telling of the tale, the way to best serve the compositions, that she only plays bass on one song, barely ever takes the lead vocal, but is all across every tune.

It’s been that way her whole career of course. But she keeps subtly shifting — I’ve missed some of the albums, or at least not spent a whole lot of time with them, but I will be going back to her set of covers (2018’s Ventriloquism) and some of the other space-jazz and earthy soul jams. And looking forward, enormously, to the August release of her second Blue Note album, No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin.

I made you a playlist — well, I made it for myself, can’t lie, but of course I’m sharing it — of 80 Meshell Ndegeocello songs. Most are from her albums, some are mentioned (and linked) above, or from other guest appearances and collaborations.

But if you are an albums-person, and my 80-song intro is too much I guess I’d suggest the debut. But it comes with the warning that it’s from 1993. And some of the bass-driven R’n’B/Soul from that era is very much rooted in that era.

So I’d also recommend 2003’s Comfort Woman. Which feels close to timeless and always seems otherworldly to me.

And, I get it, you’re not really a fan at all — and/or — not looking to be. Well, I would urge you one more time to watch the clip at the top, or take in some of that giant playlist, or any of the clips around it.

But if none of that works and you’d like best to just move on to anything else…well, I have that of course. I have this week’s random playlist:

More old than new for week 174 of the long-running playlist. But I’m not at all saying that like it’s a bad thing. A random selection is exactly that, some good, some less good. I like these songs and hope you find some you like too.

And how about that Meshell Ndegeocello! Any fans out there? And if so how and when did you first hear her and what’s your pick for a favourite track or album?