Meshell Ndegeocello turns familiar songs inside out

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive for more. Capella University's Flex Path learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella.edu.

Tonya Mosley (0:15)

This is Fresh Air, I'm Tonya Mosley. My guest today is Meshell Ndegeocello. And you might recognize her vocals and bass from this song.

That's Meshell Ndegeocello with John Mellencamp covering Van Morrison's Wild Night in 1994 By then, Ndegeocello was already making a name for herself with music that defied easy categorization. Her songs could ache with romantic longing while celebrating black beauty and sensuality and the freedom to define yourself. She once described them as broken-hearted revolutionary love songs. Over three decades, she's moved between funk, soul, jazz, and rock, composed music for television, including Ava DuVernay's Queen Sugar, and created an acclaimed musical tribute to James Baldwin. Now on her new album Synonym, Ndegeocello reimagines familiar duets with an eclectic group of artists, from Chaka Khan to Brandi Carlile, creating arrangements that challenge how we hear songs we thought we knew, like this version of the Human League's 1981 hit, Don't You Want Me, which she records with Cat Power.

Meshell Ndegeocello, welcome to Fresh Air.

Meshell Ndegeocello (2:38)

Oh, wow. Thanks for having me. It's such a pleasure.

Tonya Mosley (2:42)

What a groove that song is. And you know, I was thinking as I've been listening to it that the original version by the Human League, it always sounded to me like a plea to be wanted. And in this version with Cat Power, nobody is begging.

It is such a groovy kind of island-like feel. What did you hear in the original that you wanted to bring out?

Meshell Ndegeocello (3:06)

Oh, I thought it was this anthem at the time when I first heard it of just such vulnerability. Yet the so-called man in the song is also saying, you know, I made you and how can you leave me? So it's kind of cheeky and weird in a way.

And I think that bass line just speaks for itself. And production-wise, we just, I don't know, I think Lee Scratch Perry's ghost came in and was like, do it like this.

Tonya Mosley (3:45)

You've said Cat Power during the recording of this kind of taught you something about using your own voice rather than imitating the original. What were you doing differently as a vocalist because of her?

Meshell Ndegeocello (3:59)

Oh, like I had made a scratch vocal and I kind of really stuck to the melody.

And she totally deconstructed it and heard it how she felt it in her body and mind. And it just made me, once I got her track back, approach it in a totally different way. And I think that's when we also re-envisioned the drums. It's like, yeah, Cat and the Ghost of Other Feelings came in and I had to remember, that's what I enjoy about music, it's unifying. You can get five people in a room and they're unified through one song, or you have this great composition, an outline. Now it's time for me to create a different palette and paint it differently. And so she's a great song stylist and I know we have these differentiations and genres, but to me, she's like a jazz singer. She took a standard and made it her own, and that really opened me up.

Tonya Mosley (5:09)

What is so interesting about this album is, you're really taking us in a different space to think about things outside of the particular voices and relationships with songs that we typically have, especially these classic ones. And the next song I want to play is one that I think almost everybody knows. It's Sonny and Cher's, I Got You Babe, which was originally written by Sonny. He composed the song for himself and Cher in 1965 That original version, there's something so sweet and almost defiant about the original. It's like two people who are insisting that they have each other, and that's enough. I want to play your arrangement with British singer-songwriter Anoni. Let's listen.

Oh my God. Can I just say, I mean, I just, I love this version. It makes me just want to run and twirl, and like, I just, it's such a beautiful arrangement. I just want to tell you that first off, give you your flowers with that.

Meshell Ndegeocello (7:10)

Well, I want to share those flowers with Yvonne Henry, someone who's very, very important to me. And I just knew like our souls were aligned in a deep friendship through music, and I've watched them grow. But when I had an idea for the song, I sort of, I gave him my emotional wants and desires and hopes for the track, and he came back with that arrangement for Horns. And I just want to talk about the importance of an arranger. And that's what I really hope people notice on the record, is that I just want to show and highlight that that's what I love to do. And I come from, my dad played in the Army Blues, Pershing's own.