Synonym features Cynthia Erivo, Chaka Khan, Brandi Carlile and more.
It’s the bassist singer composer Meshell Ndegeocello’s third for Blue Note.
The album is introduced by its imaginative first single, ‘I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me),’ a treatment of the George Michael and Aretha Franklin classic featuring Ndegeocello alongside Broadway star Cynthia Erivo, the Tony award winning singer and actress who played Celie in The Color Purple.
The album according to Blue Note explores themes of desire, love, heartbreak, friendship, disappointment and care, drawing on material that spans 1960s folk, 1970s soul and country, 1980s R&B and electro-boogie, 1990s alternative rock and early-2000s hip-hop.
“This project is about classic songs that are known and loved,” says Ndegeocello. “The songs have diverse tones, representing various genres and intentional grooves. But the album is also about joy, selfhood, individual representation and universal experience.”
Quite a cast. In addition to Erivo there’s Cat Power, Chaka Khan, Brandi Carlile, Bill Callahan, Chris Thile, Nick Hakim, Robert Glasper, Madison Cunningham, Laura Lee (Khruangbin), Lizz Wright, Emily King, Lianne La Havas, Moses Sumney, Destin Conrad, Anohni, Willow, Evann McIntosh and Ink.
Synonym reunites Ndegeocello with producer David Gamson, who worked on the bassist’s early albums Plantation Lullabies (1993) and Peace Beyond Passion (1996).
Gamson co-produced Synonym with Ndegeocello and Abe Rounds, while Rounds, Deantoni Parks, Chris Bruce, Jake Sherman, Jebin Bruni, Larry Goldings, Josh Johnson, Levon Henry, Elena Pinderhughes and Béla Fleck provide the instrumental backbone throughout.
Ndegeocello describes Synonym as “an expression of queer liberation as a synonym for liberation of all kinds”, drawing inspiration from Audre Lorde’s belief that struggles for justice are fundamentally interconnected. The new arrangements, she suggests, function in much the same way: distinct interpretations that remain true to the emotional core of the originals.
The album out in October follows The Omnichord Real Book (2023) and No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin (2024).
