For her next album Synonym acclaimed jazz musician Meshell Ndegeocello is teaming up with an intriguing list of collaborators and taking on some classic tunes.
The first offering from the upcoming album, which will be out on 2 October, is a cover of I Knew You Were Waiting For Me which was originally recorded by George Michael and Aretha Franklin.
It’ll be Ndegeocello’s third release on the revered Blue Note label following her acclaimed albums The Omnichord Real Book and No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin. It’ll be the fifteeth record of the musicians career and follows in the footsteps of her 2018 covers album Ventriloquism.
“This project is about classic songs that are known and loved,” Ndegeocello said of her new work. “The songs have diverse tones, representing various genres and intentional grooves. But the album is also about joy, selfhood, individual representation, and universal experience.”
The record also sees Ndegeocello reuniting with producer David Gamson who was behind her first two albums 1993’s Plantation Lullabies and 1996’s Peace Beyond Passion. The record also features an impressive line up of vocal talent including Cat Power, Chaka Khan, Brandi Carlile, Bill Callahan, Laura Lee of Khruangbin, Lizz Wright, Lianne La Havas, Moses Sumney, ANOHNI, and many others.
When asked about the album’s intriguing title, Ndegeocello first suggests that the word “just feels good on the mouth,” before expounding upon its true definition: a word or phrase that means the same thing as another word in the same language. “That’s how humans are,” Ndegeocello theorizes, “Regardless of our differences, deep down we essentially want the same things: healthy food and a safe place to live. We are all different. But at the core of the human condition, we are the same.”
“This project is an expression of queer liberation as a synonym for liberation of all kinds,” she continues. “The queer community claimed me when others didn’t and for a long time that felt too far away from other communities to which I belong but now I recognize the ways in which it all overlaps. Once again, I went back to my elders: Audre Lorde told us that there is no single issue struggle. Similarly, these arrangements are synonyms for their originals – these different sounds still mean the same thing.”
A significant aspect of Synonym is that the songs are delivered as duets by people who identify as the same gender. “Or hover around the same continuum of feeling,” clarifies Ndegeocello, acknowledging that gender expression is often fluid. “Hopefully, that’s what stands out – that everyone is well matched musically and complement each other. That said: I’m not defining anything, because the absence of definition is where I feel most free.”
The tracks covered on the new record as just as diverse as the artists tackling them. Chaka Khan joins Ndegeocello for the Bee Gee’s penned country classic Islands in the Stream, another Gibb brothers composition is Guilty, originally a hit for Barbra Streisand – on the new album Ink features on the track. ANOHNI is onboard for the Sonny and Cher staple I Got You Babe, while Destin Conrad and Moses Sumney team up for The Closer I Get Top You, originally recorded by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway.
Meshell Ndegeocello previously spoke to OUTinPerth in 2012.
