Feature

Meshelle Ndegeocello:

When it comes to creative diversity, Meshelle Ndegeocello is one of the forefront artists in last twenty years. Known as a dynamic bass guitarist she is also a singer, writer, producer, who has performed in the genre of funk soul, jazz, r&b, and reggae to name a few.

Besides her own eight albums, she has featured on soundtracks and tribute albums, collaborated with the cream of the music industry, all the while using a voice that is as soulful and at the right time as sexually stimulating as Barry White. Recently in London performing a string of sell out shows at Jazz Café to promote her new album Devils’ Halo, Blues & Soul’s Ricardito was honoured to speak to Meshelle about how quickly you can record an album, not being a dinosaur, and becoming a Professor of Funk.

RIC: Thank for you taking time out to talk to us. How were your London shows?

MN: There were great; I love playing the Jazz Café. I love when its consecutive shows, you get into a rhythm. It was good I had a great time. I feel the audience is open my offering so I had a good time.

RIC: Thank you for coming back to London so often. You are one of the few artists that come back every year or so

MN: Like said I love playing there. I love record shopping and having a good time.

RIC: Now I hear you a Guest Professor at Bootsy Collins Funk University. What is that all about? What does that mean?

MN: Well I just did the first instalment; basically someone interviewed me and asked me questions about playing bass. That’s always interesting to me and I hope I give helpful information. It’s basically interviews and discussions about music.

RIC: Do you know how many students are taking part?

MN: I’m afraid I don’t know that, but I heard it’s pretty popular. I am just excited to participate in anything with Bootsy Collins, and like I said hopefully give helpful information about playing and stuff. I am going to put together another one. My band happens to have three bass players in it; me, my bass player and guitar player are all bass players. So they I’ll do a little interview with us and tell them what that’s like.

RIC: You are currently promoting your new album ‘The Devils Halo’. That’s an interesting title, at this point in time what does that title mean for you?

MN: Well we all deal in myths. The myth of the devil that many people forget is that it started out as an angel that had to deal with not being number one. Also it has to deal with balance; I guess I am learning as I continue to live my life, that there aren’t many absolutes so I have to find the happy medium. This is what this recording is for me… just finding the things I believe in and feel good about, watching people, and realising that everything is not so black and white; that’s what it means to me.

RIC: I also hear you recorded it within 7 days.

MN: Yes a really short time. We went back to the sort of vintage method of just playing well, and I recording it straight to tape. The foundation tracks are bass, guitar and drums, and then over dubs, and then did vocals. Pretty much it has a spontaneity to it that I feel had been missing with recording on Pro Tools, and trying to make these really highly produced recordings. I really enjoyed it; I liked the sound of it, the warmth of it, and I am hoping people enjoying it sonically.

RIC: Was that the plan when you were initially planning the album, to record it in such a short space of time?

MN: Yeah well I had written the material a year earlier, and we had been playing it as a band so were feeling good. It was like “how about we go in and record, and capture the energy of our interaction together” and I guess I was excited that it all just comes from our hands, there are no tricks.

RIC: Tell me about your music process. Do you lock yourself in room or is it just from things you see on a daily process?

MN: Just things I see on a day to day basis. I mean sometimes I write when I am you know riding on a train or on an aeroplane stuck in my seat; it varies. Honestly I just have ideas flowing through my head all the time, and I just try to work through them and have inter-dialogue with myself. I don’t really have a specific process; I just kinda go with the flow. I am lucky I don’t have another job, this is what I do. I mean I am a parent, but pretty much I just… I read, I try to stay informed, I watch films, I cook, and within all that sometimes I hear songs in my head. That’s pretty much how I work. I have a small studio. I still work in a hip-hop sense I make beats myself, and just play stuff into my digital 8-track and try to bring it alive.

RIC: Do you still carry little notepad with your notes inside as well?

MN: (Laughs) what I am saying is I still make demos. I think people nowadays they make so-called finished products. Everyone has Pro Tools or some kind of studio system in their house. I am clear that when I am at home making music it is just the beginning of an idea, so I make my little ideas and try to build upon it.

RIC: This is your first album on a new record label (Down Town Records in UK, Mercer Street in USA). Why this record label? Why now?

MN: I have known Josh Deutsche for a while, even when I was just a bass player auditioning for groups he had. He and I just guess have a good rapport and he was open to my ideas, and I was grateful that he gave me a budget to make a recording. It is really that simple. I guess I am really out of that place… I have never been disillusioned about what a record company is. I am very clear what it is; it’s the modern day sponsor. It’s the modern church for Michelangelo; I am in no way comparing myself. I am just an artist and hopefully I find funding. I am very grateful to the experience. I am not anti-record label; I am kinda anti-generalisation and marketing, that’s where I am coming from.

RIC: You come across as a very calm person, you’re aura is very grounded. What keeps you so grounded?

MN: Hmmmm…. Honestly?… errrrr….. I am surrounded by people who keep me in reality… I don’t know. I guess I am clear about what this is going on in the world. My real reality is my family and my children, and this [fame] comes and goes, I don’t have an attachment to it. If I didn’t have a record label I would still make music, I’d have to get a job to make money, but… I am not special, there are people 100 times more talented than I am, I was just lucky. I just try to appreciate it and be kind to my gift, that’s all.

RIC: And would you say you were a spiritual person?

MN: That’s a difficult question. I think I was a very intense believer, and right now I have been humbled and I don’t know. I just try to have a moral foreground, and the bricks of it are treat people kindly. There is no absolute truth, everyone is suffering, there is no hierarchy in suffering, and a lot of these things are constructs. As long as I stay clear about that I should have an alright life. Yeah I am just clear; I know how this all works so I try and find joy within myself and not from outer things.

RIC: Do you ever catch yourself or sometimes surprised that you are Meshelle Ndegeocello; multi-Grammy nominated, you have worked with all these people, you have been around the world? Or have you got your head around it now?

MN: (Laughs) you know it’s funny. Well when I played the Jazz Café shows there was one night where a guy was like “why don’t you play funk anymore?” or something like that. And I guess I had to realise people have expectations of me. Luckily I am not a dinosaur; I can see how things work. I have been lucky enough to see artists that have come before me who have lived their life trying to please everyone, but I am not sure that it’s going to bring you something sustainable. So I know people have expectations of me, I just try to stay humble and try to do the best I can. People like the first recording I made because it was honest, and so I just try and maintain that honesty in my music. I know not everyone is going to like it and everyone is not going to feel it, but I take a critique in criticism, and a criticism like a critique. I just try to maintain musical integrity and grow, and try to listen a lot of music and grow; that’s my goal in life.

RIC: Are there are any up and coming artists you have your eye on?

MN: I am working with an artist from the UK named Dwyer. I am looking forward to finishing that, I think that’s gonna be interesting. I don’t know, I mean I listen to a lot of music. There is a really amazing drummer named Deantoni Parks he plays in the band Kudu. Doyle Bramhall who is a writer and guitarist from Texas, who is starting to produce; I am a really huge fan of him. There’s a folk group called the Avid Brothers that I am totally enthralled by lyrically and musically. Its very simple music but I just think they have a real ear for understanding the chaos of the world, so I have been enjoying. Then I find myself looking back. I am always asked why I don’t do older music. So next week I am going on tour to play some Gil Scott Music that I mixed together with Eugene McDaniels. Because instead of playing what I used to do I find myself looking at the music that inspired me, that got me to this place that I am. I am always open, I listen to whatever anyone gives to me, but my opinion is nothing. I just wish everybody well on their musical journey and hope that even though there aren’t record companies, that there is some kind of quality control in people’s life. And that people are going to continue to see live music and that there is still a place for people to perform. That’s what I am concentrating on mostly.

RIC: Well you are still trailblazing that path for them so that there is still live music out there.

MN: Yeah I hope so, I worry about venues. I’m just hoping people still go to see music; that’s my worry and thought.

RIC: Are there any plans for you to work with Marcus Miller again?

MN: I’m not sure, I just saw him. I just got invited to an amazing Miles Davis exhibit going on in Canada, and I ran into him there; hopefully we’ll get in contact soon. Not to sound arrogant but I would love to produce him; love to do something. I wonder if he is caught in a jazz world, and I would like to help him make something that was modern yet musically viable for him.

RIC: Ok here are my final three questions I ask everyone.... Name your three buckwild songs that you go crazy when you hear, and you cutting people off mid sentence to go get your dance on?

MN: Oh wow! Hmmmmmmm any song by Rhianna will get me on the dancefloor.

There’s an old song called Flowerz, it’s a just 12” inch, it always totally excites me; its one of my favourite songs. (Meshelle is referring to Flowerz by Armand Van Helden featuring Roland Clark).

Electric Relaxation by Tribe Called Quest. Yeah that’s like my favourite song in the world.

RIC: Five years from now you are the cover of Billboard or Variety magazine, what would you like the headline to say?

MN: “Here’s a positive loving force in the world of music”. You know I am not doing it for the money or the fame. I am very aware that it pays my bills, but I like music, and I just want to be able to stay creative. I would want the whole magazine to be dedicated to you know the unsung hero, or the underdog. I am just here… I don’t really do anything else, I mean I play music and I love it and appreciate it. That’s what I would want it to be about, the people that you may not see on the billboard charts, but these are the people that truly love what they do and want to be a positive force in the world. I know that’s hippy-dippy, but I miss Bob Marley and I miss John Lennon and the people that were also striving to be decent human beings and give back to society. I am hoping I can fall into that category.

RIC: Well I think for many people you are already in that category.

MN: Oh you are a kind man.

RIC: If there were any 3 artists dead or alive that you could work with or write for, who would they be?

MN: Oh I already go that planned. I would like to get me, my guitar player and my drummer, and I would like to go into the studio with Brian Eno as Head Producer and Engineer, and just see what would happen (laughs). I think that would be sonically incredibly interesting; that would be my dream experience. Otherwise I wish I could resurrect Fela [Kuti] and go play with him and a punk trio. I would really like to do a gangsta record with Frank Sinatra (laughs). It would be hip, you know like totally programmed beats, but with Frank Sinatra on it, and I would dedicate to the underbelly of society. And of course I would love to spend a month with Jimi Hendrix, just as a person and just jamming out… that would just be incredible.
Words Richard 'Ricardito' Ashie