Center Stage series sponsored by
This show was originally scheduled for January 11, 2025. If you are a ticket holder for the January 11 show, your ticket is valid for the March 30 rescheduled performance, and no action is needed on your part. If you're not able to attend the March 30 concert, you can contact the GPAC box office. 901-751-7500 and boxoffice@gpacweb.com.
“The world needs more musicians like her: creatively restless and ambitious.” – NPR Music
Masterful and mercurial, acclaimed Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and producer Meshell Ndegeocello has eschewed genre for originality, celebrity for longevity, and musical trends for musical truth. Fans have come to expect the unexpected from Meshell, but audiences everywhere are fascinated by her sojourns into soul, spoken word, R&B, jazz, hip-hop, and rock, all bound by a lyrical, spiritual search for love, justice, respect, resolution, and happiness.
The prescience of James Baldwin is alive nearly forty years after his passing, a testament to his enduring impact. A prolific writer, his essays, novels, plays, and poetry have assessed and often reproached the human condition. As an activist, his oratory prowess in the 1960s was bar none, lending his outspoken views on Black oppression with profundity and eloquence. Born in New York City on August 2, 1924, this year marks the centennial of the eminent writer, a momentous occasion that is celebrated by the release of one of Meshell Ndegeocello’s most intrepid efforts to date: No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin.
With No More Water, Ndegeocello embarks on a prophetic musical odyssey that transcends boundaries and genres, delving headfirst into race, sexuality, religion, and other recurring themes explored in the celebrated writer’s canon. Following 2023’s The Omnichord Real Book, her acclaimed debut for Blue Note Records 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.
Co-produced by Ndegeocello and guitarist Chris Bruce, No More Water features some of the bassist’s frequent collaborators including Bruce, vocalist Justin Hicks, saxophonist Josh Johnson, keyboardist Jebin Bruni, and drummer Abe Rounds. Also appearing on various songs are a stellar group that includes 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 spoken word by venerated poet Staceyann Chin and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and critic Hilton Als.
Nearly a decade in the making, the album’s origins began in 2016 during a performance at The Harlem Stage Gatehouse as part of their annual showcase honoring Baldwin. Ndegeocello had delved into Baldwin’s work the year before, including the seminal nonfiction work The Fire Next Time, which she considers “life-changing” and carries with her as a “spiritual text.”
A bass player above all else, Ndegeocello brings her warm, melodic groove to everything she does and has appeared alongside the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Alanis Morrisette, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Chaka Khan, and many more. Meshell was the first woman to be featured on the cover of Bass Player magazine. Among a long list of accolades, Ndegeocello has been nominated for 12 Grammy Awards, winning in 2024 for Best Alternative Jazz Album and in 2021 for Best R&B Song.
Find your center with the incomparable Meshell Ndegeocello.
