Michelle Lynn Johnson, better known as Meshell Ndegeocello (styled Me’Shell Ndegéocello), is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, and bassist. She was born in Berlin, Germany, and grew up in Washington D.C.
Meshell Suhaila Bashir Shakur (as she became known) adopted her surname Ndegéocello, which means “free like a bird” in Swahili.
Her music has become a benchmark for soul music, so much so that the press has hailed her as a redeemer of the genre. Her music incorporates funk, soul, hip-hop, reggae, rock, and jazz into her work. She has been nominated for 11 Grammy Awards and won one at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony in 2021 for Best R&B song for her song “Better Than I Imagined”.
Her album Plantation Lullabies (1993) received a nomination for Album of the Year at the ’95 Grammys. Songs like “If That’s Your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night)”, “Who Is He and What Is He To You”, and other songs where she talked about her religious side among other personal topics amazed fans.
Meshell is openly bi and shows that throughout her work. Homologating a powerful voice and creative mind that blends seamlessly with her religious rebelliousness, her political activism, and even her sexuality, Meshell is one of the few artists from the ’90s who spoke openly about these issues, leading to some fans to think at first that she was gay even though she had songs that also talked about relationships with men. With her first album, where most of the songs talked about loving and making love to a woman, there were also others where she spoke of a more heterosexual perspective, bothering mainly the lesbian community; however, her usual response was “I could care less”.