On No More Water by Meshell Ndegeocello

An album unlike what else I've heard

I have read James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time probably four times in my life now, only having been introduced to it about eight years ago. Not particularly in the habit of re-reading things often except to find the right poem from a work, or on the seldom occasion of re-experiencing some prose, The Fire Next Time is one of the most impactful works of writings on my life I’d encountered. It is a guidebook of resistance and brilliance, as so much of Baldwin’s work is. For an example of the power and the strikingness of this work, here is a favorite quote below:

It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death-ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us... It is the responsibility of free men to trust and to celebrate what is constant--birth, struggle, and death are constant, and so is love, though we may not always think so--and to apprehend the nature of change, to be able and willing to change. I speak of change not on the surface but in the depths--change in the sense of renewal. But renewal becomes impossible if one supposes things to be constant that are not--safety, for example, or money, or power. One clings then to chimeras, by which one can only be betrayal and the entire home--the entire possibility--of freedom disappears.

Meshell Ndegeocello has created a record in conversation, in response, inspired-by and dedicated to this wonderful work by Baldwin titled No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin. A collaborative work with a number of different musicians and producers, Ndegeocello also includes the voices of writers Staceyanne Chin and Hilton Als. The Chin poem I’ve linked to here includes the verse, “most days I don't know what I will be like then / but every day—I know what I want to be now,” which felt to me resonant with Baldwin’s passage above of confronting with passion the conundrum of life. Als shares in this idea, as quoted in his interview I linked to, “I think that’s what I love investigating the most—how we put ourselves together.”

All this context for a discussion on Ndegeocello’s marvelous and impactful record, I want to assure you, is not to distract from the actual music and work composed within. No, No More Water, is a fantastic collection of art. I was introduced to this album through the song-poem-gospel of “Tsunami Rising,” which begins with the lyrics, “In the balance of human biology, all bodies are created equal. Everybody exactly 70% water. Regardless of race, religion, gender, sex, sexual orientation — we all die after seven days without drink,” and continues to rise through its eight-minutes length to crescendoing and bellowing passions examining the necessity for profound and affective societal change for the sake of survival. After hearing this work, I immediately re-listened to the piece before queueing up the rest of the album. Other moments in this record that really echoed for me were the lyrics in “Thus Sayeth The Lorde,” “The Lorde tells us there is nothing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives” (This piece in particular is a conversation with Audrey Lorde’s work).

So many marvelous, genius thinkers and artists in the world today and having existed in recent times, that it feels disingenuous to pretend that art is popping up in vacuums. But to see artistic creation that holds collaboration so central to its being, revels in the drawing-together of others, burrows a warmth into my being. In poetry, for instance, one of my favorite pieces of any book are the acknowledgements and notes sections. To see what inspired an author enough to have some documented gratitude, witnessing who is an ally and colleague of the author and this work.

In Ndegeocello’s record label’s write-up of the record, I came across these lines, “Thematically, the album moves like a procession in a Black church—baptism, testimony, worship/praise, and ultimately, resurrection. For the album’s opening track and lead single, “Travel,” we are brought inside the mind of a man with suicidal thoughts, a recurring motif in much of Baldwin’s oeuvre. Setting a dystopian mood, Rodriguez’s organ and Chin’s echoing incantations help usher in Justin Hicks’ ominous vocals: “I’ll stay away with all the work to be done/I’ll be bleeding while you bake in the sun.”

The record is an experience in soul, jazz, r&b, and haunting gospel-like vocals. At times fast and full with fervor and dance, at times mournful and borderline despondent, the work seems to carry this energy to showcase life as a spectrum of woes and wiles. As to be expected from a response to a work like The Fire Next Time, Ndegeocello creates a vivid environment with her music capable both of comforting in those most distressed and afflicted of times, as well as inspire one through the horrific toward hope and the potential for change.

If you listen, let me know what you think. I would personally say this is an excellent record to put on for an introspective walk, or, better yet, if you’re reading Baldwin, rest your eyes and hear someone else fervently engaging with him alongside yourself.