Written by Jenny O’Keefe | 26 March 2010

Meshell Ndegeocello started playing bass at age 13 because she wanted to play with her brother and the way to fit in was to play the instrument not being played. Bass was a natural complement to the musicians around her, and sent her on a journey of creating unique grooves and exciting the senses of music fans worldwide. By the sound of things she’ll be visiting us here in Australia before too long. Jenny O’Keefe speaks to the woman who was once dubbed ‘one of the few artists who really matter’.

Jenny: You’ve remained original, never selling out, and your evolution as an artist has been displayed and expressed through eight albums. You’ve recently released Devil’s Halo – how did you go about writing new the material? Looking back, looking forward?

Meshell: Not so much looking forward as just looking, and some things catch my ear or eye or mind and sometimes it comes out as music – the things that I’m experiencing. Sometimes I don’t write anything or I just wait until I feel something and I try to get it out.

Can we talk about covers – there’s ‘Love You Down’ on the current album, as well as the Dolly Parton song ‘Two Doors Down’ released a few years back. How do you go about choosing a song to cover and then making it your own?

I’ve been thinking about that – funny you should mention it – the next recording is going to be a cover record. I remember this tape, I was with my friend, he had the original version of ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’ by Tina Turner by the guy who wrote it as a demo. I remember hearing it and it was nothing like it ended up being. I just see a song as a melody most of all, and lyrics, and then you can do whatever you want to it. So I still listen in that way sometimes, after a while I start to hear it 20 different other ways. I can maintain the lyric and the melody, my mind goes, OK, I know those chords backward and forwards so let’s try some other things. Maybe that beat would go to it? It sparks my imagination. I pretty much think of songs as always being someone’s demo and this is just one approach to it.

Devil’s Halo has recently been released in Australia, and it strikes me as quite a tender album. There’s emphasis on softness as much as there is on groove. How has this album been to make, compared to your back catalogue?

I don’t know... I really enjoy making music, so it’s not something I intellectualise or analyse. I think the only thing that’s definitely different is we made it in six days instead of taking ten months to make a record and we did it as a band, not just me as an individual and then adding people. It’s different in the sense that I’m older, I’ve made eight records, but probably been involved in about 20 records, so as a process it’s not unfamiliar, it’s not a brooding process any more. It’s more about playing well. I can just relax and play the songs.

What current music inspires your art form?

I just saw this band, Tinariwen. They’re from Mali and it’s like the blues with three guitar players and they sing these amazing harmonies and melodies and you can move your body to it.

Do you have an ultimate musical goal in mind?

I guess so, just that my catalogue will take care of me into old age so I can just play golf and shuffleboard and stuff, go on trips to Australia and New Zealand and have a good time.

You have a son who’s graduating from college at the moment as well as a new baby who arrived recently for you and your partner – congratulations on both milestones. What do your children teach you about life, about love?

My children teach me patience. Patience and patience [laughs]. To try to be a better communicator. My older son, now we’re people and we have to communicate. He’s an adult and we’re learning how to relate to each other as adults. I no longer have such control I guess – I hate that word – so that’s interesting. Constantly learning about yourself. The baby definitely teaches me patience. They’re so clear and open and they only have crying and they can barely control their body and they have these new feelings and you just have to be as kind as possible so they have good patterns no matter what they’re going through. They teach me a lot.

And what do you teach them?

Don’t nobody know nothing for sure. This life is an incredible thing – sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s not, and you really have to put effort in to enjoy it and you need to accept that some things are beyond your understanding and out of your control and that it’s both joy and sorrow.

Readers of CHERRIE magazine would love to know a bit about your feelings of identifying your own sexuality, is there a term that you feel strongly about aligning yourself with?

More and more I’m thinking we’re just trying to be loved and have a life and try to be nice to each other. I think that sometimes all the labels make it easier for generalisations and marketing techniques and I’m just hoping that we can all be kind human beings. Gay, straight, or whatever, it doesn’t really matter. Can we just get to a place where we’re kind to each other and get beyond our differences?

There’s a lot of campaigning going on within the GLBTIQ community in Australia for marriage equality and basic recognition of our relationships. For you, living in America, I’d imagine the mood has shifted quite significantly over the last year, post-Obama. Do you think we’ll reach a point where diverse sexuality and lifestyle within communities aren’t such a big deal?

In my lifetime, probably not. I think the only way those things are possible is if you eradicate a lot of the old belief systems about gender and religion. I just think that as a species, people are hell-bent on not letting go of some things – in my limited opinion.

Do you have plans to visit us in Australia?

I do have plans to visit Australia sometime before September.

Devil’s Halo is out now through Inertia