Me'Shell Ndegéocello

July 18 - 25, 1 9 9 6 [Off the Record]

** Me'Shell Ndegéocello

PEACE BEYOND PASSION

(Maverick/Reprise)

Madonna's Maverick label is fast forging a corporate identity on the very principles that propelled its owner's career. It sells radical female images with middle-of-the-road pop music. Current Maverick slugger Alanis Morissette, for example, looks like Patti Smith but more often sounds like Laura Branigan. On the other side of the color line, Me'Shell Ndegéocello takes Grace Jones's androgyny and Sly Stone's revolutionary black rock and somehow turns it into an unspectacular blend of R&B pop and light hip-hop. Although Ndegéocello's follow-up to her 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies, showcases the fine musicianship of herself (on bass, vocals, and other instruments) and helpers like saxman Joshua Redman, guitarist Wah Wah Watson, and organ whiz Billy Preston, the album is too often a slick bore.

Most of the ingredients for a great soul stew are here, from the open-throated vocals of "The Way" to the rhythmic adventures of "The Womb," from the searing guitar of "Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart" to the fat bass line of the Bill Withers cover "Who Is He and What Is He to You." But the sounds just don't lift off the disc. Even the potentially inflammatory "Deuteronomy: Niggerman" and "Leviticus: Faggot" don't burn the way they should (lesson: heavy-handed religious imagery does not a prophet make). And despite Ndegéocello's commendable desire to re-inject a strong consciousness and spirituality into love-sick R&B, "Make Me Wanna Holler" doesn't come close to the spirit of either Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues," from which it borrows a chorus, or the similarly structured "Pappa Was a Rolling Stone." By aiming for peace beyond passion, Ndegéocello seems to have overshot her mark.

-- Roni Sarig