NYC NOW - July 27, 2024: Special Episode- Meshell Ndegeocello’s Ode to James Baldwin

Episode Date: July 27, 2024

James Baldwin was a well-known writer, activist, and poet from New York City who inspired countless individuals with his powerful words. To celebrate Baldwin's 100th birthday on August 2nd, singer and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello is releasing a new album, "No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin." Music journalist Marcus J. Moore talks with Ndegeocello about the inspiration behind her tribute to Baldwin.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. In this special episode, we're talking about the late James Baldwin, the legendary writer and activist from New York City. Next month marks Baldwin's 100th birthday. To honor him, singer, songwriter, composer, and virtuoso bassist Michelle Indigocello is releasing a new album on that day called No More Water, The Gospel. of James Baldwin. Baldwin is widely known for his poetry, essays, novels, and plays, his voice capturing the struggles and triumphs

of the African-American experience. Music journalist and author, Marcus J. Moore, caught up with Michelle Indigayoccello to learn how her album came about. One-two-12-12, test one-two. It's just audio. We're just together audio. You the boom man.

My name is Marcus J. Moore. I'm Michelle Inde-Gi-Eochello, today. Today. Today. Right now we're outside of James Baldwin's old apartment. We're on the Upper West Side where people like Maya Angelou, Miles Davis, and Mary Baraka would just come hang out. But this is also where he wrote works like if Bill Street could talk.

Given the fact that you have a really awesome record coming out on Baldwin, what does this make you feel when you're standing out here right now? I wonder if he enjoyed coming home back to the city of his youth. when Miles and Maya came here, you know, were the conversations like, ooh, child, I don't have to deal with the world. Let's just talk about music. I wonder, you know, did he cook?

I heard he was a fantastic cook. Yeah, I just wondered, what was he at? Was it downtime? Or was it collecting and sharing, you know, thoughts with each other? Right on. Now, I can't help but notice that you have a Baldwin pen.

Yes. And you have a Baldwin book in your pocket. Yes. Do you walk around with the fire next time? Oh, when I'm in the midst of the work, yes. Yeah? I do. This book changed my life.

Which way are we at it? Right now we're in Central Park, and it's a lot going on, obviously, because it's New York City. When did you first introduce to James Baldwin's work, and how did it affect you? I think, like, 2014, like in a serious way, because I was commissioned to do a piece on him for a celebration that the Harlem stage does for him. every year. It was a multimedia sort of ritual that we had put together just based on his words and we used the trope of the church service. And so instead of doing the communion, we do a communion for water, which we celebrate women

and water, which are, I think, our most endangered resources. And we just started taking his work and living with it and filtering it through our bodies. I work with an amazing songwriter named Justin Hicks, and we just sort of dived into the work and just created music like writing spirituals where we consider Baldwin as the deity. And Abigail DeVille has a piece,

where she honors those who were enslaved by the White House. And so she did the visual art to the piece that we did five nights in a row at the Harlem stage. So was it ever your intention to keep doing shows around Baldwin, or was it at a person? Not at all. Not at all. People started asking for it. And then I made the recording just to have to sort of document the music. And then it had a life of its own.

At what point did you decide this is going to be an album? Hmm. It decided itself. It just came together. Like, I'm just on this ride, and I'm just trying to respect it. Just be right here, right? Now we can't lose our way. Struggle starts now right here today.

And most of all, it's just to bring people back to his work. But I know if everyone read it right now, it would just really open your mind up to center yourself in love and respect for others. Because people see it as this like he's a firebrand. But it's really about love, you know? Mm-hmm. Loving yourself enough not to need to oppress another to make yourself feel better about your situation. Love has never been a popular movement and no one's ever wanted really to be free. The world is held together, really it is held together by the love and the passion of very few people.

Otherwise, of course you can despair, walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you're going to remember is what you're looking at is also you. Everyone you're looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster. You could be that cop. And how did all of that translate to the new album that's coming out? Yeah.

The title of the record is No More Water, the Gospel of James Baldwin. It features some of the most amazing musicians who have been so kind to share their time with me. Julius Rodriguez and Jake Sherman, because I wanted it to center around The object that connects to Baldwin is the organ, the B3. You know, there's nothing like the church. He says the church never left him. The church is theater. That theater centers around that B3 organ.

So they're the feature to me in that recording. And then there's Justin Hicks and his wife, Conita. So that's what it's about to me, featuring these four people, their writing styles, their virtuosity, their ability to take Baldwin's words and manifest them in song. Mercy. Mercy.

Breathing. Place. Nice. So I want to talk about a few songs in particular. What was the creative intent with travel? I love his essay where he talks about the difference between French culture, waiter culture, and American weight and dine culture.

In this essay from his travels, He talks about how a waiter in France is respected just like an actor. And then he talks about America, where it's a low-paying job, where you've got to survive on tips, and no one has a respect for you. Because you know why? You used to have it for free from slaves, you know? And so I love reading the essays about his travel because it was my first time I could learn different things about what he had experienced at that time

that I take for granted. Because me going to Europe as a musician, sometimes I am treated like a great jazz musician. Sometimes I'm treated like an African. Depends how I feel to them at that day. So travel to me is like we use these Caribbean rhythms. And just to tell the story, just what it's like to be a traveler in the world, depending where you go. Because sometimes I go somewhere when I know you like our music, but I know you don't Like me or the idea of me or what the color of my skin means to you.

When I listen to this record, I hear overt gospel themes. It feels like the black church is very much a part of this album. Talk to me about Thus Sayeth the Lord. Thus saith the Lord is based in the church service, just the structure of it. And to me, I wanted it to have the energy of Harriet Tubman and Audrey Lord. just to bring that feminine into his message because him and Audrey Lord explains succinctly in a way that few writers can and Tony Morrison.

We were never meant to survive. We've been legislated into society. I am the offspring of an obsolete machine. I cannot legislate kindness or you to treat me fairly. And that song is just to remember. remind you, they would lynch us for sport, entertainment. Thus save the Lord. We were never meant to survive.

I want to be clear, and I'm not saying this to be political. These are just things I see to be true. We have one candidate that took out a full-page ad to have some young men of color given the death penalty. given the death penalty. Just want to be clear how that functions in this dynamic. There's been times in history where a white woman could say, that person did this to me.

They would go collect them from their home and lynch them and take photographs and sell them. You have to see this for what it is and wonder why. There's the violent tendency. towards aggression that we experience in American society. What is your favorite track on that album? Oh, I guess my favorite track would be another country, which opens with the words of Colleen Smith,

fantastic artists, if you're not aware of her work, conceptual artists from California. And somehow it embodies this feeling of, Once you get all this information and reconcile yourself with it, then you have to reconcile with yourself as a human being on this earth and how we can start to really appreciate humans and water as an important resource to life. And so that would be my favorite try, personally. And I titled it that because Baldwin says sometimes love was just another country.

He had never known. Just a place he couldn't fathom. Hopefully we'll start to try, you know. When this album comes out, the liner notes are written by Hilton Ows, who's also a Baldwin scholar. And where we connect on the liner notes is Hilton and I both want to say that, like, Baldwin, look how far we've come.

We're black, we're queer. And I don't even like those titles, but I just, I think that want to work, and Baldwin wouldn't be okay with that. But we're different and we're open to life. And so to be in New York, in this beautiful park, in the city that gave us Baldwin, is for me, I'm hoping if there is some afterlife, my parents can see that like, wow, look what I've done and have accomplished and how many people I, I have in my life to love me for me who I am. Look what Baldwin did to change so many lives. I hope he knows he's loved in that afterlife. Look at this city.

It's amazing. I love James Baldwin's quote in his yearbook. Fame is the spur and ouch, you know. I wonder what it was like to become successful, to travel the world, and then come back and set up a home in New York City. One of the most vibrant cities in the world. that could attach to the front.

Michelle, I greatly appreciate your time, seriously. Oh, I appreciate y'all, too. And thanks for it being you. That's music journalist and author Marcus J. Moore in conversation with singer-songwriter, Michelle Indigocello. She was discussing her upcoming album, No More Water, the Gospel of James Baldwin, marking Baldwin's 100th birthday. Indigiocello will perform at the Brick Celebrate Brooklyn Festival

on August 2nd. It's a free show. Tickets are available. available at their website. Special thanks to Jim Carozman, Dea Milo, Pamela Nishel, and Allison Riley.