Meshell Ndegeocello Embraces Duality for Upcoming Album ‘Synonym’

Meshell Ndegeocello (Photo Courtesy of Charlie Gross)

The art of the duet has a way of bringing forth numerous variables and perspectives. At the same time, two individuals joining their talents for a particular song can be something special to experience. It’s one of the many facets of music’s aesthetic malleability and ability to touch upon numerous dimensions. It’s also something that the singer-songwriter, poet, and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello has been pursuing with her latest material. This is evident in the album Synonym, which is released via Blue Note Records on October 2.

The announcement of the full-length was officially revealed today (July 15), and it features renditions of different tunes with an ensemble of artists. This includes the likes of Cat Power, Chaka Khan, Cynthia Erivo, Robert Glasper, Chris Thile from Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers, Brandi Carlile, Laura Lee from Khruangbin, and Bill Callahan among many others.

“This project is about classic songs that are known and loved,” Ndegeocello says about the album via a press release. “The songs have diverse tones, representing various genres and intentional grooves, but the album is also about joy, selfhood, individual representation, and universal experience. Regardless of our differences, deep down we essentially want the same things: healthy food and a safe place to live. We are all different, but at the core of the human condition, we are the same. This project is an expression of queer liberation as a synonym for liberation of all kinds.”

“The queer community claimed me when others didn’t,” she adds, “and for a long time that felt too far away from other communities to which I belong but now I recognize the ways in which it all overlaps. Once again, I went back to my elders: Audre Lorde told us that there is no single-issue struggle. Similarly, these arrangements are synonyms for their originals — these different sounds still mean the same thing.”

With the duets being a central focus, there’s a wide range of musicians rounding out the instrumentation with Deantoni Parks on drums, Chris Bruce on guitar, Larry Goldings on piano, Elena Pinderhughes on flute, and Béla Fleck on banjo to name a few. For a preview of what to expect from the upcoming full-length, check out the version of “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me),” featuring Erivo and originally done by George Michael and Aretha Frankllin, at the link below.

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Cover Artwork for Meshell Ndgeocello’s “Synonym”

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