Thirteen years have passed since Meshell Ndegeocello released her masterpiece The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams—fourteen years if you count the five-song EP that preceded the release by a year. Despite knowing from her previous albums that she refused to be locked into one box, The World still came as a shock to many fans, including me. It took a few listens to understand her drive to defy expectations—expectations about genre, about how a pop song flows, about lyrics and meaning. Beautiful fragments, incomplete closure, fleeting moments, dissonance, shapeshifting… This is the vocabulary of The World. I explored this and other albums in more depth in Elliptical: The Music of Meshell Ndegeocello, co-written with Andre Akinyele. But I wanted to revisit some of those perspectives here. Continue reading →
Revisiting a masterpiece by Meshell Ndegeocello
Thirteen years have passed since Meshell Ndegeocello released her masterpiece The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams—fourteen years if you count the five-song EP that preceded the release by a year. Despite knowing from her previous albums that she refused to be locked into one box, The World still came as a shock to many fans, including me. It took a few listens to understand her drive to defy expectations—expectations about genre, about how a pop song flows, about lyrics and meaning. Beautiful fragments, incomplete closure, fleeting moments, dissonance, shapeshifting… This is the vocabulary of The World. I explored this and other albums in more depth in Elliptical: The Music of Meshell Ndegeocello, co-written with Andre Akinyele. But I wanted to revisit some of those perspectives here. Continue reading →
For at least half a century artists have used popular music as a way to confront racism, America’s original sin. Emerging in tandem with the civil rights movement in the 60s, serious social commentary became widely popular, taking a cue from the long history of worker protest music. Of course, there were sporadic efforts to tackle racism before then, like the unforgettable “Strange Fruit” written by Abel Meeropol and first recorded by Billie Holliday in 1939. But such efforts were not widespread. Sadly, the need to express the pain of racism through music is just as strong today as it ever was. I’ve listed below some of the most powerful songs about racism, some well-known and some lesser known. If you have suggestions to add to the list, let me know. 
Song structure forms favored by popular music have been pretty stable for decades. Most music (popular and otherwise) is built off at least two contrasting sections: the initial material (A) and the contrasting material (B). This helps give the music emotional direction, climax, and release. In popular forms, A serves as the verse and B serves as the chorus. The most common form, not surprisingly, is verse–chorus–verse–chorus–verse/interlude/bridge–chorus. After two repetitions of verse–chorus, a number of things can happen. There can be simply an instrumental verse. A bridge can function as additional contrasting material, taking us away from the basic material then returning us back to it. Sometimes there is a breakdown that provides contrasting rhythmic material, the equivalent of a non-lyric bridge. In a variation of this A-B form, there are two verses before the first chorus (A-A-B-A-B…). 
Meshell Ndegeocello is one of the most fascinating and creative figures in contemporary music. She’s an artist who defies labels and music genres, continually inspiring many with her profound vision. Meshell is a rare breed in the music industry. She has survived and weathered the ups and downs of the business by evolving musically, even against fans’ expectations. But, even more, she has also evolved spiritually. She’s like an older sister or close relative who you watch growing up right before your very eyes, from crazy and wild to mature and content within herself.