Recipe For Disaster by Alison Riley

Author:Alison Riley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC

For the Record by Meshell Ndegeocello

soul on the planet

I had finished the release cycle of my second album, Peace Beyond Passion, and it didn’t chart as well as “If That’s Your Boyfriend,” but there was a cover that did really well. There were some signs the label wasn’t sure what to do with me. Madonna’s brother, who I loved, had persuaded me he should direct my next video, and I thought I looked like a drag queen. I was pretty unapologetic about my Blackness, my queerness, and my androgyny, but they tried hard to make me more “marketable.” Nevertheless, I was feeling really good. I was settling into LA life. The records were sounding good. I was feeling technically on top of my game. I was working on new music.

After my first two albums, David Gamson and I shared an amazing relationship as producer and artist. David taught me how to make music, how to eat well, how to make a good cup of coffee—he exposed me to so many different things. I was always excited to make music with him; it was just a good experience. We went into my next recording assuming that we would be the right combination for the new songs.

We started the record. I wrote “Loyalty,” “Bitter,” “Fool of Me,” and he and I recorded those songs. We had a meeting with the head of the label and a couple other people. We go in, we play the record. That is one of the hardest things to do, and since then, when people ask me to check out something, I refuse to do it when they’re in the room. Having been there, it’s for the best not to do it with the artist.

I sat in the room, they listened to the music, no one had any sort of facial expression, and they just simply told me that this wasn’t gonna work and to find a new producer. The head of the label went over to his stack of Billboard magazines and other industry periodicals and asked, “Who has the number one record? Let’s call them.” No relationship whatsoever. That didn’t matter. That was just insulting. I think I got up and walked out of the meeting.

The label wanted a famous producer, and as this was happening, my friend Craig Street was getting kudos having just produced a number of successful albums. I trusted Craig already, so I brought him to LA, we do the whole dance with the label, they’re happy, I’m happy, we do the meeting, and we talk about what’s left of the budget. After recording with David, and the time writing and just living in LA, there was a fraction of the budget left. That’s a whole other story.

We had to make the album really quickly, but it was a great experience, with musicians who became my friends and family to this day. We were in a studio in the Valley that was very brown, like the brown crayon, I remember that. I cooked for the band and made coffee during breaks.

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