Meshell Ndegeocello: RFI

we did dis togedder last year
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/chocolate-grinder/listen-bunnybrains-if-mountain-was-a-man

and dis one
https://soundcloud.com/bunnybrains/colorado

thanks

man, comfort woman is an amazing record. i have not listened to the rest of her discog that much but it feels underrated to me by this thread?

i got turned onto it because syd tha kid put "love song #1" on this (great) playlist for rookie (http://www.rookiemag.com/2015/09/life-soundtrack-syd-tha-kyd/) and damn the whole record is mostly good chilled out neo soulish kinda stuff. just like, the perfect sound. i wish there weren't any screaming guitar solos but oh well.

anywho just wanted to rep for that one. she's playing in nyc in a few months.

that playlist really is great

yes

and yeah comfort woman is an incredible, spacious record. a great headphones record too, so much detail

i love all of her records though tbh. i only learned recently that the first two were produced by david gamson of scritti politti which 1) blew my mind 2) made a ton of sense when i spent a ton of time with anomie and bonhomie this year, on which meshell features

also unsurprisingly i love the aggro screaming psych guitar solos, they are literally the best part of "love song #3"

Yeah I only got Comfort Woman last year and I became totally obsessed with it for a while, such an unabashedly sexy album. Love the reggae bass and occasional attempt at Timbaland style stutters.

I don't think I've been as vocal in my love for Comfort Woman as for TWHMMTMOMD or Devil's Halo, but it's the single best album to have sex to ever made by anyone.

I would concur, if this album didn't exist:

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0000/187/MI0000187639.jpg

(Which I would recommend it to anyone who wants to listen to some slow cosmic sexy soul music.)

But Comfort Woman is definitely up there, yeah.

soooo....where do I start? I own Peace Beyond Passi and nothing else. I've been dipping into Bitter, Comfort Women, Weather.

bitter and comfort woman are great introductions imo. I also think you'd loooooove devil's halo

Comfort Woman is as good a place as any. It's worth noting that most of her albums tend to have a distinct vibe from one another, so there isn't really any one album that can be taken as representative of her work. The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams might be something of an exception because it's an expansive tour de force whereas the rest of her albums tend to hone in on doing one thing. But I can also see finding that album overwhelming.

My problem with Bitter is it's too lyric-focused, which isn't always her great strength.

I agree to a point, but also every melody on bitter breaks my heart

I'll have to go back to it. I haven't listened to any of her 90s work in a long time.

im catching up with some of her stuff that ive missed. its interesting how much of a 'better' singer she has become over the years. but also the one thing that i think will always be a barrier for her is that shes still too limited/mannered as a singer. it doesnt matter ultimately, if the songs are good enough, but its like shes permanently going for 'gracefully wounded'.

dirty world is my shit however.
(soundcloud is pretty excellent at guessing what i want to hear next lol)

I need a new Meshell album.

in the meantime is it time for an albums poll?

agreed and yes

https://www.instagram.com/p/BXqorhCDP9u/

includes: an excerpt of her cover of "tender love," potentially from a new album coming out in november?

ohhhh it's a covers album https://www.instagram.com/p/BWd2EJrjntB/

incidentally holy shit at that tracklist

1. wonder if i take you home
2. Nite& day
3. Sometimes it snows in april
4. Waterfalls
5. Atomic dog
6. Sensitivity
7. Funny how time flies
8. Tender Love
9. Don't disturb this groove
10. Private dancer
11. Smooth Operator

!!!

yesss

https://media.giphy.com/media/26n6YSEVjKzqE4Jqw/giphy.gif

https://soundcloud.com/officialmeshell/sometimes-it-snows-in-april/s-gR5VM

and a lyric video for "tender love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZSCWwCJAxI

album out 3/16

gonna b so gooooood

i'm so hyped, these are both so gorgeous

in particular her "sometimes it snows in april" is just killing me

wowwwwwwwww @ the "sometimes it snows in april" cover

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/08/590336350/first-listen-meshell-ndegeocello-ventriloquism

1980s songs slowed down with interesting vocal touches and instrumental flourishes.

Reference to Neil Young Harvest listening at time of recording makes sense too

very good and cool record

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/meshell-ndegeocello-ventriloquism/

great review brad. i've listened to the "sometimes it snows in april" cover nearly every day since it came out. the whole album is quite something.

thank you!!

atomic dog 2017 is so awesome lol. possibly even more dog-like than the orginal, but not quite as dogg-like as snoop's "what's my name"

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8232751/meshell-ndegeocello-ventriloquism

She talks about making covers her own and her take on Bruno Mars (“karaoke “)

I listened to this album 4 times today. Clearly something I needed.

yeah, this album is cool. i think my favorite is "sensitivity."

this album is a real beauty. it is one of those few cover albums where most of the covers are better than the originals.

I get very strong Sade vibes from Meshell's voice on this album. But of course the music here is not muzak at all.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2018/04/17/meshell-ndegeocello-fugazi-go-go-growing-dc/?utm_source=Editorial+and+Events&utm_campaign=e001012fe8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_612a4959fd-e001012fe8-402537885

On her DC go-go and more roots

Nice gig last night at Kennedy Center. Some cuts from new album plus Nina Simone ones too. She had a photo of her deceased sax-playing Dad onstage, and talked about going through her records earlier in the day at her family’s place. I like her on keyboard as well as bass.

She's gonna be back at Kennedy Center Sunday this time with a version of her James Baldwin Tribute. In 2016, she did a stage musical, “Can I Get a Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin” at the Harlem Stage in New York. Also per article : This version will be a concert, forgoing the costumes, blocking and sets of the original production but including the spoken narration drawn from Baldwin’s book and the songs written by Ndegeocello, Toshi Reagon, Justin Hicks and Staceyann Chin.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/music/meshell-ndegeocello-gives-a-reading-from-the-scripture-of-james-baldwin/2018/12/13/8c60e91c-f7e4-11e8-8d64-4e79db33382f_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ed24111fc73c

“When I was younger,” Ndegeocello says by phone from her current home in Brooklyn, “I couldn’t understand why people looked down on my mother just because she didn’t have much education, why my father was so bitter about not advancing in the military the way his white colleagues did, why I loved the music in church but disliked the fire-and-brimstone sermons. When I read ‘The Fire Next Time,’ it all started to make sense. Baldwin was a game changer in creating a language for the marginalized.”

Tickets were kind of pricey and I didn't splurge for it tonight. Have seen her a number of times, but I am still kind of regretting missing this James Baldwin tribute show of hers.

Saw her play 90 minutes of Prince songs at Paisley Park last night, it was awesome of course. More thoughts soon.

The songs: When Doves Cry, Let's Pretend We're Married, Let's Work, Strange Relationship, Love 2 the 9s, If I Was Your Girlfriend, Sexy Dancer, Hot Thing, When You Were Mine, Pop Life, Tamborine, I Wanna Be Your Lover, Starfish & Coffee, Purple Rain

!!!!!

I saw an ad for a Roots/Questlove fest and she doing Prince songs is on the long bill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGhpyGf-XlE

Mellow Ndgeocello doing Pink Moon works well enough, although not amazing