Grammy Winner Meshell Ndegeocello To Perform At McCarter Theatre Feb. 15

PRINCETON, NJ — Two-time Grammy award winner Meshell Ndegeocello will bring “No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin,” a theatrical live rendition of her 2024 album, to McCarter Theatre on Saturday, Feb. 15 at 7:30 p.m.

The show is a collaboration between McCarter Theatre Center, and Princeton University’s Humanities Council and co-produced by Jill Newman Productions.

A prolific writer, James Baldwin’s essays, novels, plays, and poetry have assessed and often reproached the human condition. As an activist, his oratory prowess in the 1960s was bar none, lending his outspoken views on Black oppression with profundity and eloquence.

Born in New York City on Aug. 2, 1924, this year marks the centennial of the eminent writer, a momentous occasion that is celebrated by the release of one of Meshell Ndegeocello’s most intrepid efforts to date, “No More Water: The Gospel Of James Baldwin.”

In this show, Ndegeocello embarks on a musical odyssey that transcends boundaries and genres, delving headfirst into race, sexuality, religion, and other recurring themes explored in the writer’s canon.

Following 2023’s The Omnichord Real Book, her acclaimed debut for Blue Note Records which won the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Alternative Jazz Album, the multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and producer renders an immersive and palpable document of Baldwin’s life. Ndegeocello has survived the best and worst of what a career in music has to offer. Fans have come to expect the unexpected and follow her sojourns into soul, R&B, jazz, hip-hop, rock, all bound by the search for love, justice, respect, and resolution.

A bass player above all else, Ndegeocello brings her warm, fat, and melodic groove to everything she does. She has earned a Grammy award along with numerous nominations, and has played alongside the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Alanis Morrisette, James Blood Ulmer, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Tony Allen, John Medeski, Billy Preston, and Chaka Khan.

As for her own bass-playing influences, she credits Sting, Jaco Pastorius, Family Man Barrett, and Stevie Wonder. She looks to spread the gospel with every creation and collaboration.

Tickets starting at $33 are available at mccarter.org or by calling 609.258.2787.

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