Music powerhouse Meshell Ndegeocello provides a 21st-century ritual toolkit for justice each month of fall 2020. Inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treaty on justice in America, The Fire Next Time, and our current endlessly changing world, this is a call for revolution in the form of an ongoing gift during turbulent times. Artists making vital work from theater to sculpture share testimonies of resilience in this monthly release of music, thoughts, meditations, and visual media, including poet and activist, Staceyann Chin, artists Suné Woods and Nicholas Galanin, and director Charlotte Brathwaite. The latest toolkit becomes available each month at thegospelofjamesbaldwin.com:

• Read: A limited-edition monthly broadsheet, featuring Baldwin’s words and calls to action. The deadline to sign up to receive a print version of the broadsheet has passed, but a PDF is available on the website.
• Call: Dial a toll-free telephone number and discover songs, meditations, and chants to ease your mind any time, day or night, when you need it most.
• Watch: Experience visual testimonies by Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, and Charlotte Brathwaite, with original music created by Ndegeocello.

This project was organized by Tara Aisha Willis, Associate Curator, Performance and Public Practice, with Laura Paige Kyber, Curatorial Assistant. It is a coproduction of Bismillah, LLC and the Fisher Center at Bard and co-commissioned by Fisher Center at Bard, UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, MCA Chicago, Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre, and the Festival de Marseille.

About the Artist

Meshell Ndegeocello is a bassist, vocalist, and songwriter, whose music incorporates a wide variety of influences: funk, soul, jazz, hip hop, reggae, and rock. She has garnered critical acclaim throughout her career, including ten Grammy Award nominations. Ndegeocello has worked with The Rolling Stones, Prince, Madonna, Chaka Khan, Terence Blanchard, and Cassandra Wilson. She has also collaborated with Billy Preston, John Mellencamp, Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott, Redman, Lizz Wright, Lalah Hathaway, Zap Mama, Cody Chestnutt, Toshi Reagon, and many others. In 2016, Ndegeocello worked with collaborators, including director Charlotte Brathwaite and designer Abigail DeVille, to create Can I Get a Witness: The Gospel According to James Baldwin, an evolving work of music theater inspired by The Fire Next Time, Baldwin’s polemic about race in America.