Sampling Meshell
Music's most reluctant ambassador enlightens us about the recording industry, her new CD, parenting with author Rebecca Walker; and why she might give up and cut hair.
by Elissa Perry
I first heard the music of Meshell Ndegeocello late one night in 1993 in a Tower Records store. I bought Plantation Lullabies immediately and played it constantly. I bought copies for my family members. Then I read a magazine article in which Meshell told a reporter, "I'd fuck your brother, but I'd marry your sister." I was even more deeply intrigued. I had to see her live. I've now seen Meshell live on three occasions. All were different. All were sublime. She is a petite woman who tackles large issues asking questions, seeking understandings, and telling stories with nouns, verbs, and a wickedly funky bass guitar. I caught up with her by phone on a Thursday afternoon. Neither the gravel of her voice, the anthems that are her albums, nor the intensity of her performance prepared me for the coming light. She is down to earth. She is prone to laughter. She glows. And I can hear it.
Girlfriends: Let's start with your view of the relationship between art and social change.
Meshell Ndegeocello: I hope I can answer your questions, 'cause, you know, I'm just a bass player. [Laughs] But it is hard when I go to the movies and the first thing I see is a Pepsi ad. Twelve million advertisements. I don't know, I think that makes me sound cynical.
Girlfriends: You think?
Ndegeocello: Sometimes.
Girlfriends: Maybe it just makes you awake.
Ndegeocello: It's so difficult to maintain some focus, some creativity in a world based on demographics. I'm just trying to find a way to continue to make music. Or, I wonder if I'm just going to go to barber school and be a barber and struggle like the rest of the world. I'm lucky. I'm far, far from rich and I'm far from broke, but, you know, I'm literally three paychecks away from being homeless, just like a lot of people who think they have it so good. And when you are in the music industry, the images I see just flat out knock me out.
Girlfriends: The excesses, or the--
Ndegeocello: To be honest, not the excess but the absurdity of it. You know, Kool-Aid-flavored water called Crystál [Laughs]. Diamonds ... You don't know how much blood is on that fucking chain you've got on. I think if I really gave in to all that, I'd really hurt somebody.
Girlfriends: If you gave in to the commercialism?
Ndegeocello: Yeah, I'd hurt somebody; myself mostly.
Girlfriends: Does your refusal to give in have anything to do with why you haven't been more commercially successful?
Ndegeocello: I went to an arts high school. So my perception of the music business was that they were my patron. You know, I wanted to be like Michelangelo; people give you money and you make art. [Laughs] Unfortunately, though, the last year and a half, I realized it's business. And I need to keep my corporation happy. So, I'm waking up. I'm growing up. I think, do I really want my song on a Mountain Dew ad? No. And then I have to think, do I want my son to be able to go to college? Yes, but ... Me and my friends are like, there's got to be an alternative way to live in this world. Perhaps that might mean moving somewhere else.
Girlfriends: So do you still have fantasies of being a Buddhist priest?
Ndegeocello: No. I don't really have fantasies anymore. I think that's how they fool you.
Girlfriends: How?
Ndegeocello: To have fantasies. So, basically I try everything I hear in my head. And I just try to live my life that way. I want to do something different. I just want to say to a label, you know, you can keep the money from my record sales. I just want a nice salary and to be able to make music, you know, make art, have a retirement plan so I can buy my cane, my walker, you know, my medicinals. I just want to live a good life, have my family. Be peaceful and loving, you know. That's it. That's all I hope for.
Girlfriends: Is that a part of your new realization of freedom?
Ndegeocello: Yeah, pretty much. 'Cause, probably, this is it. There's no big prize at the end.
Girlfriends: Are you still a practicing Muslim?
Ndegeocello: Oh yeah. I've got some of it all, though. You know.
Girlfriends: I noticed that on the credits for Cookie you thank a number of people perceived as being the Creator or the Supreme Being.
Ndegeocello: You've got to.
Girlfriends: Has this new war changed your perspective on racism?
Ndegeocello: Probably more on classism.
Girlfriends: In terms of who is fighting, or what we are fighting for, or--
Ndegeocello: Yeah. I mean, it's very clear to me that at the core, [the conflict] has nothing to do with race. It has to do with money. I don't know, though: a black male friend of mine said the first couple days after this September eleventh thing, he was just so happy that people weren't looking at him anymore. I don't know. Hate is hate to me and it has been going on for quite a while. It frightens me more than anything.
I did this piece for the Brooklyn Academy of Music: I had this Arabic prayer intertwined with this interview with Anne Heche from Barbara Walters where she talks about hearing the voice of God and how she spoke in this different tongue. It was just this weird piece. A couple of people booed me as soon as the Arabic prayer came on. And I've been threatened. I'm frightened that people assume the worst and that people are just so unaware.
I feel that we are in an age where we are actually going to experience our--I don't want to say destruction, kind of the beginning of our next evolutionary process. Like the dinosaurs. I think music will definitely suffer. Art will definitely suffer, because it's no longer relevant.
Girlfriends: Music and art that's not about propaganda?
Ndegeocello: It's all propaganda, though. Even what I say. They didn't want to put out my record because I say, "We all are suffering in a world trade paradise."
Girlfriends: You wrote that before September eleventh, though.
Ndegeocello: Long before. But, you know, my brother says, it really won't hit us until we can't go to the grocery store and buy food or water. Everything will be okay as long as you've got cable TV and you can go to the grocery store.
Girlfriends: That's frightening.
Ndegeocello: In a way, it's not. Maybe it can be a movement of great enlightening.
Girlfriends: So you still have that hope that things can change?
Ndegeocello: Oh definitely. I hope I can be sort of an ambassador to that change.
Girlfriends: Have you found any like-minded artists?
Ndegeocello: Yeah, in different ways. [But] I don't see music as this great change force. I think that people just express themselves the best way that they can, and in their stories you find something. I've heard some beautiful stories from people. There's this group that I love called Lamb. And Coldplay. Of course every time that I put on Bob Marley I get something, and everything is all right with the world.
Girlfriends: Would you say that he's one of your idols?
Ndegeocello: Oh, definitely, definitely. I've been revisiting a lot of Tracy Chapman and just a lot of people telling their own stories. That's the art. Just deep down being honest and true with yourself. To me, that's what feels--that's virtuosity.
Girlfriends: On Cookie you go back a lot to the late sixties and seventies with the Dick Gregory references, the Angela Davis speech, and--
Ndegeocello: Parliament. They were, like, a gospel band and yet Flashlight rocked. "Shine that little light under the sun." Or my favorite lyric, "I'm an untied dog in a dogmatic society." They were, through the guise of popular culture, able to communicate certain ideas. We're lacking that now. I turn on music now and the story they're telling me I know so well. There's nothing transcending.
Plus, they put it out there and therefore it's true. Especially if you go out to clubs or someplace, you know people believe what they hear. They see these things in videos and they believe it's the truth.
Girlfriends: And then they want to go out and emulate it or buy it?
Ndegeocello: Right! I could name three songs right now, you know, Jagged Edge's "Where's the Bacardi At"? They're just ads for other shit. Take the FUBU song. And they are all derivative ideas of songs past.
Girlfriends: Not just sampling?
Ndegeocello: Beyond sampling. You have Carly Simon singing over a Janet Jackson tune. That's all I'm saying. I write Wynton [Marsalis] letters all the time and I try to tell him the reason why jazz is dead is because no one can write anything. We are creating these great virtuosos. These great young players. Crazy players. But, on jazz labels, they are able to go further if they do the catalog jazz tunes. Therefore you have all these young incredible players who don't write anything. And so nothing's new. You know, hip-hop was my saving grace for a minute because in a three-minute song, artists heard one bar or a back beat and turned it over in their minds and created something totally different. That's kind of gone too far. [Laughs] Except for a few, like Outkast, and you know, I think RZA [of the Wu-Tang Clan] is a genius. Gritty, really interesting stuff. In a way he's like a weird, sort of urban Jimi Hendrix. Sometimes you have to bypass lyrical concepts, but there is a lot of creativity, lyrically, too.
Girlfriends: What do you think about Missy Elliott's work?
Ndegeocello: I had a chance to work with her. She does a remix on my record. I think she is incredible--one of the few creative people. And she is a great songwriter. She wrote a tune, an Aaliyah track, a ballad, that just blows my mind. I'm hoping that's going to come back around to where people are being creative and writing their own tunes. Right now we are in a slump and where there are cookie cutout groups and they're not that interesting.
Girlfriends: So how do you shield your son from all this? Or how do you help him process it?
Ndegeocello: Well, we live in Berkeley and that alone keeps things in perspective. But he suffers. I mean, we all suffer from it. We ran out and got the new PlayStation. Right now, I'm shooting for a well-read skateboarder. [Laughs] I mean, he is a kid.
Girlfriends: You have to find that balance.
Ndegeocello: Yeah. Do you want to raise a follower, or a good, loving, human being? A critical thinker. Someone who can make their way in the world and think for themselves. Hey, Bob [Marley] said, "[Revolution] won't be of the flesh, it will be of the mind." So, I'm just trying to change my mind. I don't want to live my life trying to make money. I just want to live an honest life, make peace, make love--Hold on a second. [Talks to someone in the background] I'm a vegan and I just ate some cheese and was just like wow! It tasted so good!
Girlfriends: How long have you been a vegan?
Ndegeocello: About ten months. I'm fine though. I'm not one of those vegans ... Like, if you wanted me to make you a steak, I would. I wear leather shoes. You know, not everyone around me has to be a vegan.
Girlfriends: Is Rebecca a vegan?
Ndegeocello: No. No. She's not. I wish. [Laughs]
Girlfriends: How did you two meet?
Ndegeocello: I saw she was doing this reading so I went down to check her out and she intrigued me. I liked the way she looked. So I hung around and chatted her up. Then we went our separate ways and I didn't see her for a while. Then I saw her again with some friends and we've been together ever since.
Girlfriends: Do you think you'll have more kids eventually?
Ndegeocello: Maybe one day, you know. Yeah, probably. I'm sure Rebecca would make a beautiful child and I'd love to be a part of anything she makes-- a baby, a book, anything.
Girlfriends: That's beautiful.
Ndegeocello: Yeah. She changed my life. She woke me up.
Girlfriends: In what way?
Ndegeocello: She made it alright, you know? All the things I think and feel, it's alright. And she's very loving to my child.
Girlfriends: So you are co-parenting?
Ndegeocello: Yeah. And people just have these ways of being, you know. Her consciousness is very expansive. So, I'm on a constant journey to learn different languages, constantly changing. You know, whatever she's dealing with at that time. And the writer life she has is just about acknowledging and being, and at the same time trying to discover all this stuff she can write. [Laughs]
Very few people are okay with change. A lot of people are like, "Okay, you are this way and so you shall be forever." I think the beauty of us is that we are okay with change. The world is vast and you just have this life. You can't be on a journey and stay in this one place. And so I walk the earth with her. I walk to be with her and she walks to be with me and if we're in the desert, she's okay with it, you know. Just be peaceful. We just realize that there's no prize at the end. That's the message. And I don't think I would have known that if I hadn't met her.
Girlfriends: So being on this journey with Rebecca has allowed you to find this place within yourself, this new freedom you talk about on your new record.
Ndegeocello: Oh, my god, yeah. And the canvas is huge and the palette is deep so we just kind of work it out, you know. [Laughs]
Girlfriends: And keep on working it out.
Ndegeocello: And working it out some more.
Elissa Perry, writer and educator, is an avid fan of women and their arts.
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