Meshell Ndegeocello is as much a scholar as she is a creator of popular music. For an hour on Thursday, we spoke over the phone about everything from the spiritual underpinnings of the raging debates over cultural appropriation to finding compassion for LGBTQ musicians who don’t necessarily feel comfortable living as openly as they could, idealistically speaking. We talked a lot about covers—her album featuring 11 versions of beloved R&B songs from the ’80s and ’90s, Ventriloquism, is out today. Making other people’s material her own has helped define her career, now in its 25th year—her biggest hit was a cover of Van Morrison’s “Wild Night” with John Mellencamp, she’s done memorable revamps of tracks by Bill Withers and Ready for the World, and in 2012 she released an entire album of Nina Simone covers. We talked a lot about the music industry—now on the indie label naive, Ndegeocello’s first five albums were released on Madonna and Guy Oseary’s Warner Bros. imprint, Maverick. Her debut, 1993’s Plantation Lullabies was a landmark neo-soul album whose subject matter (black pride, white supremacy, black hair, opiate use, unethical non-monogamy) remains relevant. A prodigious bass player with a buzz cut and determination for self-expression,… Read full this story
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Meshell Ndegeocello on Prince, Her New Covers Album, and, Yes, Bruno Mars have 354 words, post on themuse.jezebel.com at March 15, 2018. This is cached page on CHUTEU. If you want remove this page, please contact us.