Me'Shell Ndegéocello - Comfort Woman

Just as Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On was about much more than the sex that it celebrated, so does Meshell Ndegeocello’s putative love album Comfort Woman have more than seduction on its mind. Lust and romance frame the record’s concerns, but as with Gaye’s work, they’re seen as a liberating force: "I wanna get free with you," sings Ndegeocello near the disc’s beginning; she later quotes an anti-pie-in-the-sky verse from Bob Marley "Get Up Stand Up" to hammer home the theme of salvation on Earth. Similarly, Comfort Woman is more musically ambitious than the bulk of recent neo-soul sets with which it shares an audience. A number of dub wise excursions and rock guitar solos ensure that a debt to the ’70s is paid, but this is hardly a slavish Gaye, Curtis Mayfield tribute. Comfort Woman finds Ndegeocello in an inspired frame of mind and at a peak of invention. --Rickey Wright