Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T20:05:08.836Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams: Meshell Ndegeocello and the ‘problem’ of Black female masculinity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2013

Shana Goldin-Perschbacher
Shana Goldin-Perschbacher*
Affiliation:
Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 E-mail: smgoldin@stanford.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Singer, bass player and songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello has inspired a growing body of scholarship addressing her funky, political, ‘othered’ musical personae. Existing work celebrates Ndegeocello in the context of identity politics (most commonly feminist, Black Feminist/Womanist, Black Nationalist or Africanist). This tactic not only defies Ndegeocello's rejection of identity politics, but also oversimplifies her complex, sometimes divergent musical negotiations of selfhood. This article highlights the discursive tensions of engaging ‘Black’ with ‘queer’ with ‘woman’ with ‘musician’ by exploring her most contradictory performances of self, particularly those which other scholars argue are ‘feminist’ or ‘queer’. Identifying a scholarly gap around Ndegeocello's strikingly conflicted performances of Black queer gender in songs about same- and opposite-sex relationships, this queer of colour critique explores manner and process over essence, articulating experiential, situational, non-linear and even incoherent perspectives. In doing so, it offers an affect-oriented, politically and musically attentive alternative conceptual frame to identity politics.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , October 2013 , pp. 471 - 496
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Albertini, B., Lee, B., Love, H., Millner, M., Parille, K., Rutowski, A., and Wagner, B. 2000. ‘Introduction’, New Literary History, 31/4, pp. 621–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, J. 2010. ‘Blackness, sexuality, and transnational desire: initial notes toward a new research agenda’, in Black Sexualities: Probing Powers, Passions, Practices, and Policies, ed. Battle, J. and Barnes, S. (New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press), pp. 82–95Google Scholar
Anderson, T. 1999. ‘Bittersweet’, VIBe, 12 NovemberGoogle Scholar
Battle, J., and Barnes, S. (eds) 2010. Black Sexualities: Probing Powers, Passions, Practices, and Policies (New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press)Google Scholar
Burns, L., and Lafrance, M. 2001. Disruptive Divas: Feminism, Identity and Popular Music (New York, Routledge)Google Scholar
Butler, J. 1991. ‘Imitation and Gender Insubordination’, in Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, ed. Fuss, Diana (New York and London, Routledge Press), pp. 13–31Google Scholar
Carroll, J. 2006. ‘Who was Mary Magdalene?’, Smithsonian, June, pp. 108–19Google Scholar
Delany, S. 1999. ‘Some queer notions about race’, in Dangerous Liaisons: Blacks, Gays, and the Struggle for Equality, ed. Brandt, E. (New York, New Press), pp. 259–89Google Scholar
Diettinger, C. 2002. ‘One tough cookie: Meshell Ndegeocello brings her visionary music and outspoken ways to the 2002 Essence Music Festival’. http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/one-tough-cookie/Content?oid=1240451 (accessed 8 August 2008)Google Scholar
Dunning, S. 2009. Queer in Black and White: Interraciality, Same Sex Desire, and Contemporary African American Culture (Bloomington, Indiana University Press)Google Scholar
Feigenbaum, A. 2005. ‘“Some guy designed this room I'm standing in”: marking gender in press coverage of Ani DiFranco’, Popular Music, 24/1, pp. 37–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, R. 2004. Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique (Minneapolis and London, University of Minnesota Press)Google Scholar
Fraiman, S. 2003. Cool Men and the Second Sex (New York, Columbia University Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frith, S. 1987. ‘Towards an aesthetic of popular music’, in Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Performance and Reception, ed. Leppert, R. and McClary, S. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), pp. 133–50Google Scholar
Fullwood, S. 2002. ‘Q&A: Me'Shell NdegéOcello’, Africana http://www.freemyheart.com/gallery/174.html (accessed 29 July 2013)Google Scholar
Galloway, A.S. 2002. ‘Meshell Ndegeocello … and all this gratuitous nudity’, Urban Network, 17 MayGoogle Scholar
Halberstam, J. 1998. Female Masculinity (Durham, Duke University Press)Google Scholar
Hammonds, E. 1994. ‘Black (w)holes and the geometry of Black female sexuality’, differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 6.2 + 3, pp. 127–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrington, R. 1994. ‘Wake-up call’, Washington Post, 13 FebruaryGoogle Scholar
Hayes, E. 2010. Songs in Black and Lavender: Race, Sexual Politics, and Women's Music (Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield, University of Illinois Press)Google Scholar
Johnson, E.P., and Henderson, M.G. (eds) 2005. Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology (Durham and London, Duke University Press)Google Scholar
Keeling, K. 2007. The Witch's Flight: The Cinematic, the Black Femme, and the Image of Common Sense (Durham and London, Duke University Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kot, G. 2002. ‘Mixing and matching’, Chicago Tribune, 17 MayGoogle Scholar
Lanham, T. 2002. ‘To Meshell and back’, Flaunt, FebruaryGoogle Scholar
Lewis, A. 2000. ‘Bittersweet Meshell’, The Progressive, 64/3 1 MarchGoogle Scholar
Lewis, N. 2006. ‘“You sell your soul like you sell a piece of ass”: rhythms of Black female sexuality and subjectivity in Meshell NdegéOcello's Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape’, Black Music Research Journal, 26/1, pp. 111–31Google Scholar
Lorde, A. 1982. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (Freedom, The Crossing Press)Google Scholar
Mockus, M. 2007. ‘MeShell Ndegéocello: musical articulations of Black feminism’, in Unmaking Race, Remaking Soul: Transformative Aesthetics and the Practice of Freedom, ed. Acampora, C.D. and Cotton, A.L. (Albany, State University of New York Press), pp. 81–102Google Scholar
Moon, T. 1999. ‘New CD a BITTER experience for singer’, Philadelphia Inquirer, 27 JulyGoogle Scholar
Neal, M. 2003a. ‘Afterbirth’, Pop Matters, 7 OctoberGoogle Scholar
Neal, M. 2003b. Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation (New York and London, Routledge)Google Scholar
Negus, K., and Román-Velázquez, P. 2002. ‘Belonging and detachment: musical experience and the limits of identity’, Poetics, 30, pp. 133–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Omosupe, E. 1991. ‘Black/lesbian/bulldagger’, differences, 3/2, pp. 102–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, E., and Richardson, M. 2010. ‘On the fear of small numbers: a twenty-first century prolegomenon of the U.S. Black transgender experience’, in Black Sexualities: Probing Powers, Passions, Practices, and Policies, ed. Battle, J. and Barnes, S. (New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press), pp. 57–81Google Scholar
Perry, I. 2004. Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop (Durham and London, Duke University Press)Google Scholar
Phillips, L., and Stewart, M. 2010. ‘Nontraditional, nonconforming, and transgressive gender expression and relationship modalities in Black communities’, in Black Sexualities: Probing Powers, Passions, Practices, and Policies, ed. Battle, J. and Barnes, S. (New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press), pp. 17–36Google Scholar
Phoenix, V.C. 1994. ‘Meshell un-censored un-fettered’, Deneuve, AprilGoogle Scholar
Polly, J. 2002. ‘Tuff Cookie’, Next, 24 MayGoogle Scholar
Rai, A. 2009. Bollywood: Globalization and India's New Media Assemblage (Durham and London, Duke University Press)Google Scholar
Redman, J. 1997. ‘Me and Meshell’, JAZZIZ, AprilGoogle Scholar
Rodriguez, A. Jr. 2010. ‘20 questions for Meshell NdegéOcello’, popolio.com, 1 March. http://freemyheart.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/5946041581/m/352105052 (accessed 25 July 2013)Google Scholar
Román, D., and Hughes, H. (eds) 1998. ‘O solo homo: an introductory conversation’, in O Solo Homo: The New Queer Performance (New York, Grove Press)Google Scholar
Rose, T. 2003. Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk about Sexuality and Intimacy (New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)Google Scholar
Sedgwick, E. 1995. ‘Gosh, Boy George, you must be awfully secure in your masculinity!’, in Constructing Masculinity, ed. Berger, M., Wallis, B. and Watson, S. (New York, Routledge), pp. 11–20Google Scholar
Seigal, B. 1994. ‘Seething is believing in equality’, Los Angeles Times, 27 August, p. F-1Google Scholar
Shelton, M. 1997. ‘The nature of a sista: representations of African American women in contemporary culture’, PhD dissertation (Los Angeles, University of Southern California)Google Scholar
Stallings, L.H. 2007. Mutha' is Half Word: Intersections of Folklore, Vernacular, Myth, and Queerness in Black Female Culture (Columbus, Ohio State University Press)Google Scholar
Stockton, K.B. 2006. Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame: Where ‘Black’ Meets ‘Queer’ (Durham and London, Duke University Press)Google Scholar
Stukes, P. 2002. ‘Resurrecting womanist theory from the lyrics of India.Arie, Lauryn Hill, and Me'Shell Ndégéocello: the performance and pedagogy of race and gender politics’, MA thesis (Denton, Texas Woman's University)Google Scholar
Tate, C. 1983. ‘Audre Lorde’, Black Women Writers at Work (New York, Continuum), pp. 100–16Google Scholar
Thompson, M.A. 2003. ‘Me'Shell NdegéOcello’, BOMB, SpringGoogle Scholar
Thompson, S. 1999. ‘Bitter’, The Onion, A.V. Club, 24 August. http://www.avclub.com/articles/meshell-ndegeocello-bitter,21138/ (accessed 3 March 2003)Google Scholar
Walker, C. 2002. ‘The modern soul of Me'Shell NdegéOcello’, Mix, AugustGoogle Scholar
Walker, R. 1997. ‘Have no fear’, VIBe, MayGoogle Scholar
Wallace, M. 1990. Invisibility Blues: From Pop to Theory (New York, Verso)Google Scholar
Watson, M. 2002. ‘The bald and the beautiful’, Time Out New York, 23–30 MayGoogle Scholar
Wekker, G. 1999. ‘“What's identity got to do with it?” Rethinking identity in light of the Mati work in Suriname’, in Female Desires: Same Sex Relations and Transgender Practices Across Cultures, ed. Blackwood, E. and Wieringa, S.E. (New York, Columbia University Press), pp. 119–38Google Scholar

Discography

Ndegeocello, Meshell.Plantation Lullabies. Maverick, 9 45333-2. 1993Google Scholar
Ndegeocello, Meshell.Peace Beyond Passion. Maverick, 9 46033-2. 1996Google Scholar
Ndegeocello, Meshell.Bitter. Maverick, 9 4739-2. 1999Google Scholar
Ndegeocello, Meshell.Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape. Maverick, 9 47989-2. 2002Google Scholar
Ndegeocello, Meshell.Comfort Woman. Maverick, 48547-2. 2003Google Scholar
Ndegeocello, Meshell.The Spirit Music Jamia: Dance of the Infidel. Shanachie Entertainment, 5755. 2005Google Scholar
Ndegeocello, Meshell.The Article 3 EP. EmArcy, 0602498442364. 2006Google Scholar
Ndegeocello, Meshell.The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams. EmArcy, B0009597-02. 2007Google Scholar
Ndegeocello, Meshell.Devil's Halo. Downtown, DWT70112. 2009Google Scholar
Ndegeocello, Meshell.Weather. Naïve, NV824712. 2011Google Scholar
Ndegeocello, Meshell.Pour une âme souveraine: a dedication to Nina Simone. Naïve, NV827012. 2012Google Scholar