Though Ndegeocello is obviously intent on stimulating the intellect, she is equally devoted to moving the body. The singer-songwriter’s primary instrument, the electric bass, is a sensuous presence that courses through the entire album like a heartbeat. Her deep, husky voice, especially effective on erotically charged songs like “Priorities 1-6” and “Akel Dama (Field Of Blood),” is the perfect compliment to the bass.

    “Music should move your soul and your heart, not just your body and your mind,” she said. “It has to move something that’s indefinable. It has to move what makes you feel.”

    Ndegeocello, 34, is fluent with all urban music forms—including funk, go-go, R&B, soul, jazz, rap, hip-hop and spoken word—and uses all of it to express herself.

    When asked about her musical influences, Ndegeocello sighed, said there were just too many to name and then invoked the names of Prince, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock and Bob Marley.

    “I listen everything, all kinds of music,” she said. “I just don’t want to be doing the same thing all the time. I love all kinds of music. I don’t want to be locked to an idea about race or gender or what kind of shit I can play. I try to listen to different music to stay fresh and make each record a different experience.”

    Ndegeocello, a single mother who lives with her 13-year old son in New York City, enjoys an intellectual life that ranges far beyond music. COOKIE is punctuated with the words of, among others, activist Angela Davis, comedian and activist Dick Gregory, poets Claude McKay and Etheridge Knight, and musician and spoken-word artist Gil Scott-Heron. She weaves their words into the fabric of her music, making it all one piece.

    “It was important to use their words on the record,” Ndegeocello said. “I want to include the information. I want to use my CD as a vehicle for some alternative information to get put out into the world, different kinds of thinking.”

    Ndegeocello has defied expectations her entire career, beginning with her first album, PLANTATION LULLABIES (1993), which included the hit “If That’s Your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night)” and earned her three Grammy nominations. She enjoyed another hit in 1994 when she and John Mellencamp, in an unlikely duet, covered Van Morrison’s “Wild Night.”

    The singer-songwriter, who paved the way for neo-classic soul artists Erykah Badu, India.Arie, Alicia Keys and Lauryn Hill, followed PLANTATION LULLABIES with three more albums—PEACE BEYOND PASSION (1996), BITTER (1999) and this year’s COOKIE. All are stellar, but they couldn’t be more different from each other.

    “People, they expect the same thing all the time,” she said. “Life isn’t like that. Music isn’t like that. You want the artist to change and give a different perspective, use a different voice, do something different.”

    “I’m trying to tell people to just be in that experience, not rely on the past or what you’ve seen on TV. Just come hear the music for what it is—that night.”

— Jim Ferguson