Meshell Ndegeocello has shared âThus Sayeth The Lorde.â
This is the third song to be revealed from her forthcoming Blue Note album No More Water: The Gospel Of James Baldwin, an homage to the eminent writer and activist James Baldwin to be released Aug. 2 on his Centennial.
âThus Sayeth The Lorde,â however, is a reference to Audre Lorde, the self-described âBlack, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poetâ whose powerful words add another dimension to this visionary work.
âThere’s a YouTube video of Baldwin with Nikki Giovanni. Watching that I could see that Baldwin had to work a little bit on his feminism,â Ndegeocello told NPR All Things Consideredhost Ari Shaprio. âSo within the project, we wanted to add another voice. And I think Audre Lorde just fits within that continuum of information and knowledge.â
Download here:Â âThus Sayeth The Lordeâ
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Listen here: âThus Sayeth The Lordeâ
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*Previous Singles Here: âTravelâ, âRaise The Roofâ, And âLoveâ *
Ndegeocello performed songs from the Baldwin album during her recent NPR Tiny Desk Concert including âThus Sayeth The Lorde,â âTravelâ and âLove.â She will be celebrating the album release with a headline performance at the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn Festival on Aug. 2 and will be touring the Baldwin project extensively across the United States and Europe over the coming months. See below for a full list of tour dates.
No More Water is at once a musical experience, a church service, a celebration, a testimonial, and a call to action.Ndegeocello has created a prophetic musical odyssey that transcends boundaries and genres, delving headfirst into race, sexuality, religion, and other recurring themes explored in Baldwinâs canon. Following 2023âs The Omnichord Real Book,her acclaimed Blue Note debut which won the inaugural GRAMMY Award for Best Alternative Jazz Album, the multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and producer renders an immersive and palpable document that is as sagacious, unabashed, and introspective as Baldwin was in life.
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.â
Co-produced by Ndegeocello and guitarist Chris Bruce, No More Water features some of the bassistâs frequent collaborators including Bruce, vocalist Justin Hicks, saxophonist (and Omnichord producer) Josh Johnson, keyboardist Jebin Bruni,and drummer Abe Rounds. Also appearing on various songs are vocalist Kenita-Miller Hicks, keyboardists Jake Sherman and Julius Rodriguez, and Executive Director of the NYCPS Arts Office and trumpeter Paul Thompson. The album also showcases powerful spoken word byvenerated poet Staceyann Chin and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and critic Hilton Als.
Nearly a decade in the making, the albumâs origins began in 2016 during a performance at The Harlem Stage Gatehouse as part of their annual showcase honoring Baldwin. Ndegeocello had delved into Baldwinâs work the year before, including the seminal nonfiction work The Fire Next Time, which she considers âlife-changingâ and carries with her as a âspiritual text.â Ndegeocello says, âIt was just a revelation to me, and it softened my heart in so many ways.â
âInspired by Baldwinâs most well-known essay, Ndegeocelloâs pieceâoften staged as a church serviceâemploys music, sermon, text, images, and movement, all of which enter into conversation with Baldwinâs monumental and delicate essay about how black bodies were perceived not only by white Americans but by blacks themselves,â writes Als in the albumâs liner notes. âThe music you hear in No More Water, is Jimmy talking to Meshell and his words meeting the language of her sounds and then coming out again through a multitude of voices, a multitude of sounds and thoughts that bring Jimmy back and give himâfinallyâhis whole and true self, that which he offered up, time and again, if only we knew then how to listen.â
