Meshell Ndegeocello Releases Video for Song Sensitivity Today + Tour Dates
Meshell Ndegeocello Releases Video for Song “Sensitivity” Today
Watch + Share Video Here
New Album Ventriloquism Out Now
On Tour in Europe, BRIC Jazz Festival in October
In conjunction with the end of Pride Month, Meshell Ndegeocello has released the video for her cover of Ralph Tresvant’s “Sensitivity” today via Jezebel. The video was directed by Cass Bird. “Sensitivity” appears on her latest album Ventriloquism, out now via Naïve. The album features versions of songs by Prince, Janet Jackson, Tina Turner and more. Watch and share the video here and stream or buy Ventriloquism here.
As a counterpoint to “Waterfalls”, this video will move quickly, be filled with emotion, joy, movement, grand gestures and small moments of tenderness. The cast will focus on faces and identities that are less conventional, less celebrated, often misuderstood and depicts them at their most vital, with each other, standing in where society has created norms that don’t apply. We see people dancing, wider images of movement and convivium, and smaller moments of tenderness, both reflecting what sensitivity means – to each other, with each other, for each other, and where it hasn’t been shown before.
Musically, Ventriloquism has the hallmarks of all of Ndegeocello’s work, lush and investigative, subversive and sublime. As always, she pays tribute to her diverse influences and in these eleven covers, we hear them layered over one another. Ndegeocello filters “Tender Love” through a folky, Californian filter and brings Vaudevillian accents to “Sensitivity”. She recreates Smooth Operator in five, and turns “Private Dancer” into a sultry waltz. The reimagining affords not just a new musical experience but also a comment on the narrow expectations of sounds and structures for black artists and black music.
“Early on in my career, I was told to make the same kind of album again and again, and when I didn’t do that, I lost support. There isn’t much diversity within genres, which are ghettoizing themselves, and I liked the idea of turning hits I loved into something even just a little less familiar or formulaic. It was an opportunity to pay a new kind of tribute.”
A portion of the profits from this album will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Track Listing for Ventriloquism:
1. I Wonder If I Take You Home [Lisa Lisa & The Cult Jam feat. Full Force]
2. Nite And Day [Al B. Sure!]
3. Sometimes It Snows In April [Prince]
4. Waterfalls [TLC]
5. Atomic Dog 2017 [George Clinton]
6. Sensitivity [Ralph Tresvant]
7. Funny How Time Flies(When You’re Having Fun)[Janet Jackson]
8. Tender Love [Force MDs]
9. Don’t Disturb This Groove [The System]
10. Private Dancer [Tina Turner]
11. Smooth Operator [Meshell Ndegeocello Version]
Meshell Ndegeocello Tour Dates:
06/26 – Brooklyn, NY – Murmrr Theater
06/29 – Paris – Festival Jazz – La Défense
06/30 – Compiegne – Palais de Compiègne
07/11 – London – Under the Bridge – Innervisions Festival
07/13 – Stuttgart – Stuttgart Jazz Open Festival – Eventcenter SpardaWelt
07/15 – Rotterdam – North Sea Jazz Festival – Ahoy Complex
09/28 – Durham, NC – Art of Cool Festival @ Carolina Theatre
10/17 – Providence, RI – Columbus Theatre
10/18 – Boston, MA – City Winery
10/19 – New York, NY – BRIC JazzFest
10/20 – Annandale on Hudson, NY – Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts
10/21 – Wilmington, DE – The Queen
11/04 – Philadelphia, PA – The Kimmel Center
01/17 – Austin, TX – 3Ten at Austin City Limits Live
01/18 – Dallas, TX – The Kessler Theater
01/19 – Houston, TX – The Heights Theater
05/29 – Dublin – National Concert Hall
06/02 – Wroclaw – National Forum of Music
Meshell Ndegeocello Links