A Man Like Me

Me’Shell NdegéOcello “Sensitivity”

Me’Shell NdegéOcello’s new album Ventriloquism is a collection of covers of R&B hits from the mid ’80s through the early ’90s, and her selection is heavy on songs that I reconnected with in a huge way when I was working on my survey projects over the past couple years: “Don’t Disturb This Groove” by The System, “Nite & Day” by Al B. Sure, “Sensitivity” by Ralph Tresvant. An interesting thing about the record is that while NdegéOcello is extremely comfortable working in funk and R&B modes, she has arranged all of the material to take the emphasis off of these elements of the songs. There’s a very particular aesthetic to the record – it’s a very moody and atmospheric vibe, and heavy on acoustic guitar and understated percussion. Some of the songs sound like they’d work in the soundtrack of a modern Western.

To be clear, this isn’t that awful clichéd thing of someone taking an old hit and making it slow and acoustic and dreary. NdegéOcello’s arrangements are far more thoughtful, and occasionally swerve into very peculiar creative decisions, as when he take on “Sensitivity” suddenly shifts gears into a jazzy vaudeville section. But no matter where she goes with the songs, she is incredibly faithful to the melodies. NdegéOcello’s project here isn’t simply an aesthetic exercise in arranging old songs, but more about her efforts to show the listener how well-written these tunes are, and how their quality is not rooted entirely in genre or cultural moments. She’s trying to rescue these songs from the lazy ways culture frames this music. Your response to the track listing of Ventriloquism is supposed to make you go “Oh yeah, I love that song! And that one too!,” and the recordings are there to show you a new way to appreciate them.

Buy it from Amazon.