Meshell Ndegeocello at The Freight

Meshell Ndegeocello is a Grammy Award-winning artist widely credited as a pioneer of the 1990s neo-soul movement. Seamlessly fusing funk, soul, jazz, hip-hop, reggae, and rock, she has built a trailblazing 30-year career as a solo artist and a highly sought-after bassist, singer, and producer. With No More Water, Ndegeocello embarks on a prophetic musical odyssey that transcends boundaries and genres, delving headfirst into race, sexuality, religion, and other recurring themes explored in the celebrated writer’s canon. The prescience of James Baldwin is alive nearly forty years after his passing, a testament to his enduring impact. A prolific writer, his essays, novels, plays, and poetry have assessed and often reproached the human condition. As an activist, his oratory prowess in the 1960s was bar none, lending his outspoken views on Black oppression with profundity and eloquence. Born in New York City on August 2, 1924, this year marks the centennial of the eminent writer, a momentous occasion that is celebrated by the release of one of Meshell Ndegeocello’s most intrepid efforts to date: No More Water: The Gospel Of James Baldwin. Following 2023’s The Omnichord Real Book, her acclaimed debut for Blue Note Records which won the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Alternative Jazz Album, the multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and producer renders an immersive and palpable document that is as sagacious, unabashed, and introspective as Baldwin was in life. Co-produced by Ndegeocello and guitarist Chris Bruce, No More Water features some of the bassist’s frequent collaborators including Bruce, vocalist Justin Hicks, saxophonist (and Omnichord producer) Josh Johnson, keyboardist Jebin Bruni, and drummer Abe Rounds. Also appearing on various songs are a stellar group that includes vocalist Kenita-Miller Hicks, keyboardists Jake Sherman and Julius Rodriguez, and Executive Director of the NYCPS Arts Office and trumpeter Paul Thompson. The album also showcases spoken word by venerated poet Staceyann Chin and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and critic Hilton Als. Nearly a decade in the making, the album’s origins began in 2016 during a performance at The Harlem Stage Gatehouse as part of their annual showcase honoring Baldwin. Ndegeocello had delved into Baldwin’s work the year before, including the seminal nonfiction work The Fire Next Time, which she considers “life-changing” and carries with her as a “spiritual text.” Ndegeocello credits Baldwin’s essays with giving her a deeper understanding of the fraught history of race and class struggle in this country, specifically its lasting impact on her and her family. “As a Black American, you are devoid of any historical grounding other than what your parents give you. This allowed me to really see what my parents went through.” No More Water renders songs with candid introspection that envisages the consequences and what that reckoning could ultimately look like. With “Trouble,” Rounds has a steady militaristic hand on drums as Ndegeocello, Justin Hicks, and Kenita-Miller Hicks on vocals softly call out, forewarning us about the battle that lies ahead for those brave enough to take up the charge; “Thus Sayeth The Lorde,” “Tsunami Rising,” and “Raise the Roof” combine the words of Chin, Baldwin, and feminist poet and activist Audre Lorde, another underrated queer icon, and in effect, giving us three generations of rallying cries; “Love” and “Hatred,” as explained by Baldwin in The Fire Next Time, are essentially two sides to the same coin — while one removes “the mask,” daring to live in their truth, the other “clings” to it, because once it’s gone, they will have to deal with the pain that lies underneath.