Meshell Ndegeocello Releases Video for “Waterfalls” (TLC) + New Album Out 3/16
Meshell Ndegeocello Releases Video for
“Waterfalls” (TLC) Today
Forthcoming Album Ventriloquism Out March 16
Watch + Share The Video Here
US Tour Begins March 18
Meshell Ndegeocello has released the video for her cover of TLC’s “Waterfalls” today. The video was shot in Iceland and directed by Damani Baker. “Waterfalls” appears on her forthcoming album Ventriloquism, out March 16. The album features versions of songs by Prince, Janet Jackson, Tina Turner and more. Watch and share the video here and pre-order Ventriloquism here.
Meshell Ndegeocello speaks about working with Baker: “I love Damani and his work and I knew he would create something with both weight and air, something that reflects both heaviness of heart and the endurance of hope. That’s what this song feels like to me.”
Director Damani Baker says: “I wanted to tell a story of resilience and fragility. The resilience of people, displaced people, people who are not home, looking for the promise of basic human dignity and hope. And I wanted to celebrate brown people leading the way forward, how our marginality and struggle affords us a unique perspective in this moment where so many people are finding themselves thrust to the margins of our economy, political systems, and habitat. We shot in Iceland where the ground was literally melting beneath our feet, and where the barren and strange landscape requires our imagination as we all strive together to figure out where we go next.”
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.
Meshell Ndegeocello Tour Dates:
3/18 – Birmingham, AL – The WorkPlay Theatre
3/19 – Nashville, TN – City Winery
3/21 – Atlanta, GA – Terminal West
3/22 – Knoxville, TN – Big Ears Festival
3/23 – Columbus, OH – Next@Wex Series at the Performance Space at Wexner Center for the Arts
3/24 – Chicago, IL – The Promontory
3/26 – Evanston, IL – SPACE
3/27 – Minneapolis, MN – Dakota Jazz Club
4/26 – Washington, DC – The Kennedy Center
4/27 – New York, NY – Le Poisson Rouge
5/3 – 5/4 – Berkeley, CA – Freight & Salvage
5/5 – Sacramento, CA – Sofia Tsakapolous Center for the Arts
Meshell Ndegeocello Links