So is the album coming out in August, or not?

She's the 'man' of her dreams

Meshell Ndegeocello. Singer/songwriter learns to make herself happy

T'CHA DUNLEVY
© The Montreal Gazette
Thursday, July 05, 2007

Meshell Ndegeocello still hates interviews.

"Still hate them," said the jazz-trained bassist, singer, one-time rapper and otherwise reclusive soul sister. "I understand I need to do them, but honestly I'm just not much of a talker."

Which is why she answered my questions via email. I had been warned Ndegeocello was a tough nut to crack before I first interviewed her, in person in 1996, for her second album Peace Beyond Passion. The release was an expansive departure from her punchy rap-funk-soul debut Plantation Lullabies. Contrary to rumour, she proved charming, funny and even sweet.

Admittedly, she's not a people person. Or music biz pawn. Ndegeocello, born Michelle Johnson, operates on another plane. Her new album The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams, due in the fall, is a beautifully intuitive work that spans genres like a warm breeze blowing through a city of styles and out into the surrounding countryside.

It features guest appearances by notable jazz cats, including guitarist Pat Metheny, drummer Deantoni Parks and guitarist David Gilmore, plus blues guitarist Doyle Bramhall, Latin percussionist Gilmar Gomes and African vocalists Oumou Sangare and Thandiswa Mazwai

"I feel quite lucky," Ndegeocello said of the roster. But her guest list, like her wide-ranging aesthetic, came together naturally.

"I am really not strategic," she said. "I just make what I feel to say and play when it happens. I don't know what draws me - I make the music to find out. I'm already onto new sounds, new ideas."

Lyrically, the Man of My Dreams explores familiar (to her) existential themes of God, love, who we are and why we are here:

"To make love and shine my light / To make love and manifest creation," she sings, on Virgo.

On the self-titled song Michelle Johnson, she takes a stand: "I'm just a soul on the planet / Trying to do good, be good, feel good."

Her ongoing spiritual search is too strong to resist, she explained: "I don't feel like I have a choice."

Music and words swirl into an intoxicating reverie on the new disc, which sounds like a lost batch of Prince outtakes - not the hits, but the parts where he trips out and loses the plot.

But Ndegeocello has lost nothing. Her music is as real as it is raw, bare emotion rubbing up against technical prowess, and stripping it of all pretense.

On her MySpace page, there is this quote, attributed to her:

"No one's striving to be Miles Davis. Everyone's striving to get paid. And, you know, I want to be like Miles Davis."

Ndegeocello doesn't control the content of the web page, and when I ask her about it, says she is not trying to be Davis, although she feels an affinity to his creative quest.

"He maintained his integrity and he was always looking for something new," she said. "He was always exploring the next expression, musically, personally, etc., not just the thing that got him paid the last time."

While asking artists about album titles is generally a very bad idea, I bite the bullet and slip in the question at interview's end. Ndegeocello indulges me:

"After being sold a bunch of fantasies, I grew up thinking I had to go out and find the man of my dreams, that that was the greatest opportunity for happiness and a good life.

"I've come to find out there is no man of my dreams, there is no panacea, you're on your own. You have to be the man of your dreams."

Meshell Ndegeocello performs tonight at 6 at the Spectrum. Tickets cost $36.50. Call 514-908-9090. For more, go to www.myspace.com/officialmeshellndegeocello