January 31, 2002
i just love how she thinks...i know, i know...you don't wanna really see this entire article up here...you wanna see the first few lines, and then a link for "more". but hey...i don't know how to do that. so there you have it. enjoy. :)
Last Woman Standing
February/March 2002 © One World Magazine
Before there was such a thing as neo-soul, Michelle Johnson was splicing and dicing P-funk with Hendrix riffs and go-go beats. Before poetry became spoken word and Prince became urban alternative, Michelle discovered jazz while hanging with her pops, a part-time saxophonist. Her love for the form, the fusion and the fabric was the kind of jonesin' that causes folks to change their names and forsake all things unresponsive and indifferent.
Hence, the birth of Me'Shell NdegéOcello, who spits caustic lyrics of desire and struggle, and spanks mellifluous music of the bass, guitar and keyboards. Her knack for weaving political commentary with religious metaphors and pickup lines, kicked off on her 1993 debut PLANTATION LULLABIES, has always been rebellious and seducing.
Almost ten years and three albums later, Me'Shell is as crunk as ever. Her latest defiant effort, COOKIE: THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL MIXTAPE, is a sonic aromatherapy. With lines like, "You sell your soul like you sell a piece of ass/ Slave to the dead white leaders on paper," she invigorates and flushes the senses with anger, shame and enthusiasm. At turns, more so now than ever, Me'Shell (or Bashir, as she is known by her homies) also sounds relaxed. For those who got lost in the sauce with PEACE BEYOND PASSION or her subdued masterpiece BITTER, Me'Shell serves her rhymes au jus so even ig'ant muhfuhs can understand. While in the middle of touring on a beautiful autumn Saturday afternoon, Me'Shell shares why she loves black people so much, and why our liberation is still so necessary.
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Nicole:On COOKIE, you seem to be making an implicit critique of hip-hop culture, materialism and capitalistic consumption.
Me'Shell: Yeah, but you know, it's beyond hip-hop culture. Hip-hop is dead. Somebody said, "Oh, hip-hop is dying." You can't kill something that's already dead. And I'm sorry, I just... I don't even do hip-hop. We're just all some watered-down derivative, you know. There's some neophytes in the vibe, but basically, hip-hop being counterculture, underground culture, that's sorta dead. That's not going down. And it's all mainstream. It's just a bunch of pop music. But I blame the values on... Basically, everyday, white folks got ancestor worship. They pass around their Benjamins and their Hamiltons and their Lincolns and their George Washingtons, and that's the vibe that permeates the culture: That money is this thing that will change your life, free your Self. And that's what I attribute the downfall to. No one's striving to be Miles Davis. Everybody's striving to get paid. And, you know, I wanna be like Miles Davis.
Nicole: Do you see yourself as a musical revolutionary?
Me'Shell: Not even that, but like, be creating some new shit, trying to be the best musician I can be. That's where I am. I wanna eat some good food, drink some good wine. I mean, that Cristal shit kills me, 'cause if you put these motherfuckers up into wine country, they wouldn't (hang). So call me critical or whatever; stuck-up, highbrow. That's what's been hard; people see me as this highbrow, sort of like weird alt-Negro. And that's not where I come from. I come from South Beach, and I can flip that language, it's all about me being whoever I need to be in life. But it's this "keepin' it real'" that's keepin' it real dumb, and I just can't really be down with that. Mediocrity is celebrated. My keyboard player the other day was like, "You got these mediocre singers or whatever, people dig 'em. But when your out on the basketball court, if you was just throwing up bricks, would they be hailing you?" No, they wouldn't.
Nicole: Some cats that I've spoken to, women and men, felt you were setting yourself up a certain way with "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)." Now you're talking about pussy, and they're asking, "Is she doing a marketing thing? Was she trying to get one audience, and now she's trying to get another audience?"
Me'Shell: I hope you write this down and quote me. Ya know, gay life, the whole gay lifestyle, is patterned off of a white gay male aesthetic. Now, that ain't my vibe. And I definitely ain't like some crunchy Birkenstock, "put all the men on another planet" (type). I love my brothers. I love my sisters. I am sexually functional with both. That's fucking boring. (laughter) If you fine, you fine. That's it. I call it like I like it. Stop being so close-minded. Worst thing you could be is a close-minded gay person. And worst thing you could be is a judgmental black person. Worst thing you could be is a dogmatic Christian. So it's like, get off my back.
Nicole: You've sampled Angela Davis, Gil Scott-Heron and Dick Gregory on this album. Have you ever gotten the chance to meet any of them?
Me'Shell: Oh yeah, definitely. If I tell you what we talk about, we'll all go to jail. (laughter) I can't tell you what goes on (with) folks.
Nicole: So you still think the revolution won't be televised?
Me'Shell: Actually, the revolution got a corporate sponsor, and so it could happen. Or either Quincy Jones, so it could still go down, get a write-up in VIBe. Hey, Bob Marley said, "The revolution we all looking for, it won't be of the flesh." I'm trying to kick the revolution of the mind off. I only question three things in our society: Why we don't have free health care. Why we don't have one man one vote. And why is college subsidizing your free education? Am I crazy?
Nicole: No, you're not. You go to a country like Cuba, which gets criticized a lot, and they have two of those three things.
Me'Shell: And we're the richest country in the world and we got homeless people. And we use 40 percent of all the world's resources. I'm not fuckin' crazy. And we just took over Afghanistan.
Nicole:You're a practicing Muslim. What are your thoughts of the war?
Me'Shell: You know, I got the faith of a Christian, the seal of a Muslim, and the love of a Jew. I'm just trying to work it out for myself. Because basically, God is great; religion and people are fucked up. (laughter) It's hard for me on this "united we stand." Because, united we kill, murder and cheat people. My thing is, who am I to judge? To forgive is divine. Basically, you see all these people murdered in the city, and then you're crying over some goddamn phallic buildings. So you gonna just send some other young men to go over there to kill and slaughter people? I'm not down. I'm definitely not down. Sorry. Tell me like it is. Just say there's a lot of oil there and we need it.
Nicole: So you on the road now?
Me'Shell: I'm on the road. I'm in New Orleans, the land of debauchery. This shit is crazy. I got out and play. I like to play.
Nicole: Why?
Me'Shell: I like people. I like to go out and hang out. And I don't really go to clubs myself personally, so if I go play, I get an experience with the people. I kinda dig that, I went to some club in New York, Cheetah? That shit scared me.
Nicole: I'm surprised you don't go out much. Is that by choice because you're a Mom?
Me'Shell: Yeah, when I'm home, I'm home, and I play my PlayStation. I watch my movies. I don't like gay clubs, and I don't like straight clubs. And so it's hard to find somewhere I really wanna go. Not just 'cause of sexuality, but the drunken thing? Kinda gets to me.
Nicole: And you don't drink.
Me'Shell: Can't swing it really. That's a little hard for me. I wanna go to a club and we all do mushrooms. I'll talk to Mother Earth in a minute. I'll talk to the trees; we have no problem. But I can't do the liquor. Like, weed is a natural mystic (but) alcohol is a known depressant, and that's legal. I can't, really. People act stupid when they're drunk.
Nicole: But the interesting thing is, a drunken man's words are a sober man's thoughts. People act stupid, but a lot of times, they're acting their natural self.
Me'Shell: Ooooo! I'ma quote that. See, when I'm drunk, I just get depressed. "The world, it's just so fucked up." So I can't drink.
Nicole: Maybe you just feel depressed all the time though, and you're really just trying to control it.
Me'Shell: That's why I smoke weed! Most people think I'm depressed. You ever read this book called Parable of the Sower (by Octavia E. Butler)?
Nicole: Mmm-hmm.
Me'Shell: I'm hyper-empathetic. I can't help it. I see shit, and I feel it so deeply. Especially when I'm in New York. I was there September 11, and I just felt it so deeply.
Nicole: What grieves you so?
Me'Shell: That we hate each other so easily. That we judge each other unfoundedly. That we believe our shit is right, and that for the last 30-something years of my life, I've been thinking, "it's okay, it's okay," and it's really not. I don't think people are ready to realize. Like, I believe in a divine consciousness. I truly do. A god, whatever you need to call it. But basically, we some animals. We just some high-thinking animals. We on some "unga-bunga" shit. Like, "I'ma get my bat and hit you back!" And I just feel like, I can't really live on that frequency.
Nicole: Did you feel at all that what you were doing was inconsequential?
Me'Shell: Yeah! I don't give a fuck. Fuck my record. I could care less. Everyday, I'm like, whew, I just gotta be a good person and be loving, make some babies.
Nicole: Do you find it hard to make those connections between being healthy, and politically in sync and conscious?
Me'Shell: Nah. The only thing I can say is, it's not that deep. I'm just me. I'm just myself. My music is just an extension of my ideas. Basically, I feel like I have a tribe. We just wanna make love, make some babies, talk about the world, constantly keep our minds moving. I've been around a lot of my elders. The elder statespeople of black politics, so to speak. And I think what I've noticed with older people? They refuse to believe other motherfuckers have ideas. And I'm trying to be aware, talk to people. I like to be around old people, young people, crazy people, thugs. I like 'em all. I just try to see what they're thinking, what they're feeling. And I love black people. I love them. Oh my God, they are the fruit of the earth to me. Africa's some dope shit, right? Africa is the mother of creation, right? But basically, if you look all around the world, everybody copies black America. American blacks, just, black Americans - I don't know what to call myself anymore 'cause I can't connect with the American shit - the neo-negro that I am? Neo-politic? It's some other shit that everybody is tyring to tap into. The people before me, my ancestors, were brought here, and they have instilled in me the tradition of improvisation. We are the most improvisational motherfuckers in the world. "Fuck it: we made a record company? Let's make a magazine. Let's do some clothes." We are the motherfuckers of invention. We have taken that grand idea of entrepreneurship and it has infected our whole being. And I really like, that's what I'm on. To me, the journey is to cultivate and somehow express stuff that I really feel they trying to kill out in us. Like this single family home, 2.5 kids shit? It don't work for black people. Sorry, it ain't working for them, either. And when I say "them," I'm talking about those who have tapped into this capitalistic sort of culture. So that's all I feel. Just cultivate what I know is in me, like in my - like Rebecca (Walker) told me - my blood memory.
Nicole: Rebecca always comes up with dope shit.
Me'Shell: I need to interview her. 'Cause she teaches me shit every day. And it's like basically, she probably wouldn't agree with this, but she's totally deconstructed the idea of race because it's not real. It's really not real.
Nicole: It's something we constructed, just to make ourselves feel comfortable living in this crazy world.
Me'Shell: Right. So I'm trying to connect to my blood memory, and not my skin. And in my blood memory, I've been forced to survive motherfuckers who don't want me to survive. And I blend that with my idea as seeing myself, as seeing this culture... (pauses) I'm an obsolete machine. My ancestors were obsolete industrial fuckin' machines forced to incorporate and integrate themselves into a society that did not want them. But now they see and take all that I have, and they try to make it theirs. And in the midst of all that, I'm supposed to survive, and the only thing I'm holding onto are some memories, some ideas. Africans had no respect for us because we had no initiation process, and our initiation process has become prison. And basically, I live in a society where they call me a pagan, witchcraft, a this, a that. And they on some ancestor worship every day of their life. Every day they pass around their fuckin' money with Hamilton on it, and Benjamin Franklin on it, and George Washington. I deal with their ancestor worship and their ideas every fuckin' day of my life. And so I'm just trying to tap into my memory. I'm trying to get back to the dirt and I'm trying to die a good death. And I don't think I can do that trying to be on MTV.
4:52 PM
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