After listening to the Meshell Ndegeocello song “Diggin’ You Like an Old Soul Record,” I decided to listen to the entirety of her 1993 album Plantation Lullabies on which this song appears. Along with Professor McKinney’s recommendation, I strongly urge everyone in the class to listen to it. It combines a variety of genres such as hip-hop, jazz, and soul that would be aurally pleasing to anyone who enjoys any of these genres. Along with this, the lyrical content within the songs is thematically dense and socially relevant, and is especially relevant to our class.
The first song on the album is called “Plantation Lullabies.” It has no lyrics, but at the same time the sound and the emotions that it can evoke still speaks volumes. When the piano and the synth came on in the song, I was grappling with two different emotions when listening to the sound. I imagined I was listening to the song in a cinematic context, which then made me realize it conveys feelings of exasperation, but also relief and rest. Related to this, themes of love and pain constantly appear side by side throughout the album, and they are indeed battling each other in a way.
For example, in “Step into the Projects,” Ndegeocello says that “The pain of everyday is hidden by the blackness of our skin…But he finds peace when he looks into her eyes, and sees her blackness is fine.” Here we see the struggles of being black that Ndegeocello is conveying, but also the solace provided by a romantic partner who shares similar experiences with the other person. In conjunction with the emotions of exasperation and relief evoked through the aural experience of the first song on the album, she now verbally elaborates on and clarifies these sentiments.
A very similar pattern also appears in “Shoot’n up and Gett’n High.” Ndegeocello mentions the “capitalistic hand around my throat,” and after that how her hypothetical partner “…found beauty in my black skin amidst the Cover Girls and Clairol ads.” This also provides commentary about dominant white standards of beauty which Ndegeocello also attacks in “Soul on Ice,” where she asks the question: “Does your white woman go better with your Brooks Brothers suit?” These standards are also critiqued behind the background within the album by emphasizing that black is beautiful. Through conveying the conflicting emotions of love, pain, exasperation and relief, she shows that through the difficulties of being black in America she is still able to construct a human space where she is able to find love and satisfaction.
Word Count: 431
Pledged,
Warren Socher
I really like how you were able to grapple with Ndegeocello's album here. I too listened to a couple other of her songs, and the way that she writes her lyrics are beautiful, but also is filled with a ton of dark emotions about the realities of being black in a white dominated capitalist society. The one line that I will never forget, and how she starts off her "I'm digging you" song, is "Remember back in the day, when everyone was black and conscience, and down for the struggle." This world that she creates with her music has so much history, passion, and pride from the black community.
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