Best Of: Meshell Ndegeocello / Betty Gilpin

From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley in Los Angeles. Today, singer-songwriter and bassist Michelle Indigiocello. She helped define the sound of neo-soul, blending funk, jazz, and R&B into music that was unmistakably her own. Now on her new album, Synonym, she's taking familiar duets and turning them into something unexpected. This album is not just about rearranging chords and rhythms, but also about queerness, visibility, liberation. Plus actor Betty Gilpin. In Widows Bay, she plays a new bride in the 1700s who finds herself caught in a terrifying satanic curse. The series walks a fine line between horror and comedy. Here's how Gilpin approached it. I was like, okay, I'm just going to treat this like it's a 1702 rom-com and then be as shocked as my character when it's less. When Harry met Sally, more exorcist goes camping. And rock critic Ken Tucker reviews some newly released recordings by Stevie Wonder. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. My guest is Michelle Indigiocello. And you might recognize her vocals and bass from this song. And the people passing by just stare with wild wonder, yeah. And it's hard to do. And the box grows just like thunder. And everything is so complete when you're walking down on the street. And the wind that catches your feet and says you're flying, flying. Ooh, ooh, the wild night is calling. That's Michelle Indigiocello with John Mellencamp covering Van Morrison's Wild Night in 1994. By then, Indigiocello was already making a name for herself with music that defied easy categorization. Her songs could ache with romantic longing while celebrating black beauty and sensuality and the freedom to define yourself. She once described them as brokenhearted revolutionary love songs. Over three decades, Indigiocello was the first to make a name for herself. And she was the first to make a name for herself. Over three decades, she's moved between funk, soul, jazz, and rock, composed music for television, including Ava DuVernay's Queen Sugar, and created an acclaimed musical tribute to James Baldwin. Now on her new album, Synonym, Indigiocello reimagines familiar duets with an eclectic group of artists, from Chaka Khan to Brandi Carlile, creating arrangements that challenge how we hear songs we thought we knew. Like this version of the Human League's 1981 hit, Don't You Want Me, which she records with Cat Power. Michelle Indigiocello, welcome to Fresh Air. Oh, wow. Thanks for having me. It's such a pleasure. What a groove that song is. And you know, I was thinking as I've been listening to it that the original version by the Human League, it always sounded to me like a plea to be wanted. And in this version with Cat Power, nobody is begging. It is such a groove. Groovy, kind of island-like feel. What did you hear in the original that you wanted to bring out? Oh, I thought it was, it was this anthem at the time when I first heard it of such vulnerability. Yet the so-called man in the song is also saying, you know, I made you, and how can you leave me? So it's kind of cheeky and weird in a way. And I think that baseline just speaks for itself. And production-wise, we just, I don't know, I think Lee Scratch Perry's ghost came in and was like, do it like this. You've said Cat Power during the recording of this kind of taught you something about using your own voice rather than imitating the original. What were you doing differently as a vocalist because of her? Oh, like I had made a scratch. And I kind of really stuck to the melody. And she totally deconstructed it and heard it how she felt it in her body and mind. And I, it just made me, once I got her track back, approached it in a totally different way. And I think that's when we also re-envisioned the drums. It's like, yeah, Cat and the ghost of other feelings came in. And I had to remember that's what I enjoy about music. Music, it's unifying. You can get five people in the room and they're unified through one song. Or you have this great composition, an outline. Now it's time for me to create a different palette and paint it differently. And so she's a great song stylist. And I know we have these differentiations and genres, but to me, she's like a jazz singer. She took a standard and made it her own, you know, and that really opened me up. What is so interesting, I mean, about this album is you're really taking us in a different space to think about things outside of the particular voices and relationships with songs that we typically have, especially these classic ones. And the next song I want to play is one that I think almost everybody knows. It's Sonny and Cher's I Got You, Babe, which was, originally written by Sonny. He composed the song for himself and Cher in 1965. That original version, there's something so sweet and almost defiant about the original. It's like two people who are insisting that they have each other and that's enough. I want to play your arrangement with British singer-songwriter Anoni. Let's listen. I guess that's so, we don't have a pot, but at least I'm sure of all the things we've got. Oh, my gosh. Can I just say, I mean, I just, I love this version. It makes me just want to run and twirl and like, I just, it's such a beautiful arrangement. I just want to tell you that first off, give you your flowers with that. Well, I want to share those flowers with Levon Henry, someone who's very, very important to me. And I just knew like our souls were aligned in a deep friendship through music and I've watched him grow. But when I had an idea for the song, I sort of, I gave him my, my emotional wants and desires and hopes for the track. And he came back with that arrangement for Horns. And I just want to talk about the importance of an arranger. And that's, that's what I really hope people notice on the record is that I just want to show and highlight that that's what I love to do. And I come from, my dad played in the Army Blues, Pershing's own. He, he played Ford's Inauguration, Reagan's, and he played in their big band. And they would have guest arrangers to keep the music fresh. And so I learned that as a young child, like that, that person, you don't, you don't know their name, but they're very important to a project. You have also said Anoni challenged you as a singer too. Yeah, definitely. What did she bring out in your voice that surprised you, you two together? It's so powerful. Yeah, I, again, I sung the song. I just sung the melody that was there. And then Anoni sent back her track. And it just was like humbling because she also wrote in an email, like you need to do yours again. And you need to just kind of rethink some things or phrasing is, you know, she just had ideas and directions. And I have to say, like when you get a certain place in your career, people make, grand assumptions that you don't want to be told what to do or given ideas. And I love when people go like, why don't you try this and do this? And it just really, keeps my mind fresh and open I get that and I totally get too as you get further and further in your career people are less likely to correct you and it's such a disservice because it doesn't help you grow as an artist and from my understanding it seems like that's what you're constantly on this journey of trying to grow oh yeah I I realize sometimes I'm the elder and sometimes I'm the the youngest person in the room and sometimes I'm right in the middle and I realize we're all on this journey together and we're all doing the best we can and I'm really I'm really okay with what I don't know and I think I've only gotten this far because I've been able to admit what I don't know your voice is so husky in this arrangement and I I've heard you say your voice has changed as you gotten older has it changed what you can express as a singer no I just it's just a different color to paint with Toshi Reagan says you know as you age you lose those falsetto points um so yeah you lose I've lost a lot of range and but I just this is my natural voice and I'm a huge fan of Scott Walker and so it's just a color I have and plus I thought it was a nice contrast to Anoni um I try to use my voice in a way that communicates like you know in church you got call and response or sometimes vocals can be a grounding and I I'm just trying to really approach it that way as I'm trying to emit something to you communicate a story and use my voice and storytelling to to aid in that song's you know service if you're just joining us my guest is Mishka and I'm going to be talking to you about your story and I'm going to be talking to you about your story and I'm going to be talking to you about your story and I'm going to be talking to you about your story and I'm going to be talking to you about your story and he was like you're going to do this gig tonight he was like you just got to know the time and you got to know you know just see the chord at the top and stay with the changes and you know just stay solid and that that's how he taught me to to work with him like this is your part in the tribe was that your first time working together oh yeah definitely and then he didn't call the other bass player for the next couple of shows um yeah definitely um he was hard and i some of that stuff i look back on i didn't like it but then i'm so grateful because i i'm seeing now he was just trying to make me better michelle and deggie ocello this has been such a pleasure to talk with you thank you so much you too i'm so grateful for your time and kindness thank you so much michelle and deggie ocello michelle and deggie ocello michelle and deggie ocello new album is called synonym now to stevie wonder one of his most popular and enduring releases is the 1976 double album songs in the key of life the collection debuted at number one on the billboard pop charts and its lead-off singles i wish and sir duke each went to number one as well it later won the album of the year grammy award for its 50th anniversary wonder has released a four-song ep of previously unheard performances and rock critic ken tucker has this review music is a world within itself music is a world within itself with a language we all understand released in 1976 songs in the key of life was a big swing for stevie wonder his most complex work up to that point a double album aimed at satisfying his own increasingly ambitious music making goals while also generating hits such as singles to keep him front and center in the culture it succeeded in every way this ep of four unreleased songs were recorded at the same sessions and to my ears its lead-off number called it's easier could be a hit single right now i went to see a love position recommended to me by a good friend who said that his ceremony made him well i told him of my broken heart and how love has torn my world apart and how i felt i'd be much better off in hell he shook his head and just said well get it i tell you it's easier to say love by the way i feel it's easier has that remarkable quality wonder has always possessed of lifting ordinary turns of phrase out of the commonplace to become catchy pearls of wisdom in this case the way stevie sings the line it's easier to say love bye-bye snapping out the bye-bye with a defensive yap tells you everything the lyric is trying to say which is that it's easier to give up than it is to work hard on a relationship even as the rich jaunty music is reminding you how great true earned love can be it's a theme that's picked up by the next song my life story of love it's my life story of love that never comes true it's that fantasy of love that never comes true it's that love that leaves me so blue and fills my empty soul with love that's left untold but keeps my lover's heart feeling gold i'm gonna take her back i'm gonna put her in my garden of love i'm gonna make her mine and i'm gonna make her mine and let her bloom into my flower of love and with rain and sunshine every day my life story of love is a perfect example of the way wonder can take a melody that verges on soupy sentimentality and gives it the firm spine of passion again the music illustrates what he's saying in this case the line about that fantasy of love that leaves me so blue as the song builds in intensity to reveal that there is a love the reality of love is so much more rewarding than its fantasy the third song i can see the sun in late december is another ballad this one with a warmth meant to kindle a love in danger of growing cold i bet you you can't even see the sun oh but the sun is shining right before your eyes i bet you you can't even see the sun cause when you're lost sometimes yourself is hard to find i can see the sun in late december i see forgotten treasures need to see ties that defeat identity washing away the beauty that was in your mind i can hear the sound you don't remember the sounds of birds and trees and harmony chords being blown by a gentle breeze making the perfect melody left behind here wonders vocals his lead voice as well as his own background harmonies press hard against the wall against a melody that might otherwise be too maudlin and his song has been heard before recorded by roberta flack in nineteen seventy five in what was indeed a florid sappy manner finally there's i'm into livin which can now be heard as a companion piece to the more familiar love's in need of love today the tune that kicked off songs in the key of life i'm into livin possesses a kind of debonair chipperness i've used to be the best at party giving cause partying used to be my name i used to have the finest of those women cause playing used to be my game oh but now i've given up all the things i used to do just to spend each moment of my life with you cause i'm meant to livin for your love i'm meant to livin for your sweet sweet love l-o-v-e love your love i'm meant to livin it's a song about living for love and listening to it you think has there ever been a love song? a pop musician who's been more enthralled with the idea of committed long-term romantic love? to listen to stevie wonder on these previously unheard half-century-old vitally fresh songs is to hear a kind of zealous emotion all too rarely heard these days like the man said love is in need of love today rock critic ken tucker stevie wonder has recently begun a european and u.s tour in which he'll play the entire song in the key of life album coming up we hear from betty gilpin she stars in the new season of the show the lowdown starring ethan hawke i'm tanya mosley and this is fresh air weekend the fx series the lowdown has just started its second season and has added emmy award winning actor betty gilpin to the cast she recently spoke to fresh air's ann marie baldonado last month betty gilpin won an emmy award for her guest performance in the critically acclaimed and popular apple tv show widow's bay a horror comedy about an island town that may actually be cursed gilpin plays a woman living in the early 1700s whose story is a vital part of the island's dark history but even in a hoop skirt dealing with what might be a satanic deadly curse gilpin manages to bring humor and intelligence to her performance in fact she's a great actress most of her characters seem to understand things that the people around them don't the characters she plays are often more complicated than they first appear. In the Netflix series Glow, she plays a former soap opera star and new mom who reinvents herself as a professional wrestler. The role earned Gilpin three Emmy nominations. Now she's joining Ethan Hawke in the second season of The Lowdown, the FX crime noir drama created by Sterling Harjo, who also created the show Reservation Dogs. Hawke plays Lee, a self-appointed investigative journalist slash bookstore owner out to take down corruption in Tulsa. Gilpin plays Ginger, a public defender who asks Lee for help. In this scene from this season's first episode, they're both at an award ceremony. Lee is receiving a local journalism award and he's just given a rambling acceptance speech while on mushrooms. The two of them meet at the bar. Which was the first time that I wasn't bored all night. Thank you. So good. Yeah, it's good, right? It was great. Ah, thanks. What brings you here? What do you do? Public defenders have a table, but I have free drinks. Okay, what do you do? Public defender. That's weird. The table. I get it, I get it, I get it. Wow, so we're kind of in the same ballpark, you know? I mean, career-wise. What? Are we at all in the same ballpark? Defend the innocent. Career-wise. Protect the truth. Oh. Serve justice. You wrote an article about a sensitive, rich, white guy. Wow, I wrote an expose on the fragility of the male ego. No, yeah, I know that you wrote a puff piece. It's not. Oh, wow. It, uh, there's a lot of backstory. Gilpin's films include Office Romance, from earlier this year, and The Social Reckoning, which is in theaters now. She's also author of an extremely funny and insightful collection of essays called All the Women in My Brain and Other Concerns. Betty Gilpin, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so honored to be here. And congratulations on your Emmy Award. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. You'll find me much changed. The unfillable hole has been filled. I have been healed, radically healed by a statue. Exactly. Just kidding. I'm glad that I got you on this side of it. Yeah. I'm going to start by asking you about The Lowdown. I've heard you refer to this show as zany noir, which I think is a good description. What drew you to this show and this role? You know, I have two young children, a five-year-old and a two-year-old daughters. And I have had the privilege of working a lot the past five years and being away a lot. Which was really hard for my family and filming, you know, in Budapest and Vancouver and everywhere but New York, where we live. And I had promised my husband and children, I was like, I'm not going to take another job for a long time. It's just going to be us. And then I got the offer for The Lowdown, you know, which films in Tulsa. And my husband and I watched five minutes of the first episode of the first season. And he was the one that paused it and was like, you have to do this show. And I'm so, so, so glad that I did. It was just one of the creative experiences of my life. I was looking at the poster for this season of The Lowdown. And it's very much a noir poster. You know, it has a huge image of Ethan Hawke's face in the middle. And then you're on the side in a blue dress, looking very much like a female character in a film noir. Yeah. But this is a take on noir. You know, plays with the genre and is subversive in a way. What did you and show creator Sterling Harjo think about your character and how she relates to kind of, you know, the tropes, femme fatale in noir or ideas of like women who need to be saved? Funnily enough, I don't think I've played less of an archetype before. Like, I think a lot of my career, you know, 20 years of playing wives and girlfriends and femme fatales and calming wives and evil mistresses. I've played a lot of different kinds of tropes and archetypes. And it's almost like one of the many benefits of aging is that you sort of age out of being an archetype. Like your id sort of seeps through whether you like it or not. And watching this, I was really struck by how much I look like myself. I'm used to seeing a very different person, you know, with lighting and hair and makeup and costume. I'm used to feeling pretty removed from the character I play because a lot of times my character is a sort of fantasy. Like I have wild hair, wild makeup, wild costumes. And I was like, oh, am I entering the era where I recognize myself in a way that was very emotional? Like if I had a zit that day, it's on the screen, the wrinkles are showing and I have wrinkled clothes. And it just, it was very emotional for me in a really exciting way. This is a tiny bit of a spoiler, but in the first episode, when you shot someone, you're in a Weezer t-shirt. You're like a very normal person. Yes, totally. And also something about being an actress for 20 years, this weird thing has happened where because part of my job is to sort of outsource the femininity of whatever character I'm playing to different departments, costumes, hair, makeup. As a result, my femininity on my own. I don't own jewelry. I'm not stylish. I'm sort of like a human goodwill bin of like abandoned old Navy clothes. And then always play women who are like holding crystal goblets and everything just so. Now your last TV role was in the show Widow's Bay, which was a huge hit just earlier this year. It feels like so much time has passed, but it was just a hit earlier this year. It won 14 Emmys, including the Emmy you won. And it's about a man who's trying to bring tourism back to the town. But scary supernatural things keep happening. People are in danger. They're dying. And it might have to do with a curse that started hundreds of years ago. And you know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. You are in a very important episode. That's a flashback episode set in 1702. You play the character Sarah Westcott Warren, who's brought to the island to be the second wife of the founder of the town. His first wife died and left four children. How would you describe your character? I had gotten the offer for that job. And then they gave us the pilot script. And then episode six. I was like, okay, maybe that it sounds like my character's job is to not know much about this haunted island. And she thinks it's her pride and prejudice. So I'm just going to treat this like it's a 1702 romcom and then be as shocked as my character when it's less When Harry Met Sally, more Exorcist goes camping. I would say that, you know, my character is the surrogate for the audience. Like you're sort of seeing it through her eyes of she's from off island and experiencing this as what she thinks is her love story. And then she's sorely mistaken. Well, I want to play a scene from the show. Your character at this point is later in the episode. She's witnessed her husband kill a man and hide his body. She's witnessed people try to kill her husband, but he doesn't die. And he then traps her in their house. And she manages to escape. So in this scene, she's running to see the people in the town that she trusts. She's going to tell them that they tried to kill her husband, Richard, but it didn't work. She's bursting into the room. Here's the scene. Yes, we noted that with some distress. I'm afraid this committee can be trusted. Then you all must listen. He is not consorting with the devil. He is the devil. I saw him struck with a knife again and again, but he died not for the good of every man, woman and child. You must make haste and stop him immediately. There is a secret tunnel that leads to the house. There is a well at the far south eastern edge that will grant us review passage. You must send 10 good strong men. A merchant sailing vessel is due to depart this evening with a berth for you. But we need your help. Pour this in his drink and he will be helpless as a babe. No, I cannot go back there. You must or he shall know. You said he must be stopped. Now you bear the burden as well. Consider the welfare of your children. My children, I have but just met them. Sarah, please. You are our only hope against this darkness. That's a scene from Widow's Bay. You just met those kids. Yeah, I had but just met them. It's so funny. You know, they had shot all nine of the other episodes before we came and, you know, shot our weird 1702 indie in the middle of their season. So we kept kind of Hamish Linklater, who plays my husband, we were sort of like shoulder tapping the crew being like, is this a comedy or is it horror? What did the other people do when they were here? And Katie Dippold, who is the creator. It was really profound to work with somebody like that who had taken such a risk. And I think that with Sterling Harjo, too, with the lowdown, I feel like there are many parallels between Widow's Bay and lowdown that they're so sort of anti-algorithm. I think there's an. I think there's an understandable pull in my industry to make things that are kind of like a gleaming vanilla car commercial, like super safe, super familiar appeal to the masses because it's really hard to get something made. And the people that are out there who are like, I'm actually going to go the other way and make something so inexplicable and strange and me and weird and, you know, unrecognizable. And then for that. To kind of explode into the zeitgeist. It's sort of like it's one of those moments where you're like, oh, there's more weird me's out there than I thought there were. It's like a faith in unanimity. Yes. Because Widow's Bay was very popular and critically acclaimed. Yes. Yeah. And as well, it should be. And, you know, I feel a little embarrassed that that's my Emmy because I worked for seven days on it. I know that like people who make TV shows. You know, it's it's a years long, extremely difficult, arduous process where people, you know, fry their personal lives and brains and sob through notes and forget to book doctor's appointments for themselves because they are working all hours making this possible. And then, you know, I came in and memorized some lines and crossed my eyes and left and I got a trophy. Now, you were nominated for three Emmys in the past for your role on the show Glow. But last month you won. Your first Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. If it's OK with you, I want to play part of the speech you gave. You wrote it in the form of a poem. And here's a little part of it. Look, my family has nurses, a priest and a teacher. I'm a spray tanned, narcissistic society leecher. But I want to thank all of the actors I've met. Old ladies in dressing rooms, hot guys on sets. What a privilege to spend this life. Laughing at crafty. Watching Shakespeare in theaters, half full and drafty. Our business is stupid, but actors are the bomb. From Martindale to Milioti, my dad and my mom. To be cringe and elitist, which you're free to find fault in. Let's all lean towards Sam Shepard and less towards Sam Altman. Thank you, Cosmo. My family, my daughters. Thank you, the rest of your family. That's my guest, Betty Gilpin, accepting her Emmy Award. What was it like? What was it like? Winning the Emmy, and I ask that because in your book you write a lot about how that kind of recognition or wanting it or staying in the work to get it is dangerous. I think you call it being validation drunk. Yeah, I mean, I feel very lucky that it's happened now and not 10, 15 years ago. I think while I'm so happy and excited and feel so lucky, there was not one cell in me that was like, yes, finally. It was just a really nice night. And then I was excited to go home to my daughters. I mean, I don't know. I think from growing up with my parents being actors to many different degrees of success, depending on the year and seeing some of the most incredible performances in theaters half full and drafty, as my nerdy poem said. I always knew there was not a merit-based correlation between good work and recognition. But I don't know. I feel so lucky that I fell in love with it as a connection-first art form, that it was me being in my parents' dressing rooms during, like, tech rehearsals, and it was people gossiping in weird Shakespeare clown makeup. Now, when you. You were young. Your parents said you have to go to college before you start acting. But you started acting soon after there, right? And you were starting with plays? Yeah. I went to Fordham at Lincoln Center, and I started acting professionally. Yeah, I cheated the rules a little bit. Like, my sophomore year, I still graduated. But, yeah, my first job was a dead body on Law & Order. Or, I don't know. Actually, maybe. Maybe it was. My parents came and took me out to lunch, and they were on their way to an audition, and they sort of flippantly said, oh, there's a part for a sarcastic 17-year-old. And I was a college student, so I was, of course, stoned. I had had a gravity bong hit at, you know, 8 a.m. that morning, and I had the confidence of a stoned person. I was like, I'm coming with you. I'm going to put my name on the sign-in sheet. And I would never, ever have the courage to do this now. But I just showed up to this audition with no knowledge of what it was or what. I think I got sides, I guess, or the scene from the waiting room and just put my name on the sign-in sheet and walked in. It's so. It's so crazy. And I got the part. And the person who played my brother is my husband. And we have two kids. It's crazy. It's crazy. Crazy. Well, Betty Gilpin, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so, so much for having me. It is an honor. Betty Gilpin speaking with Fresh Air producer Anne-Marie Baldonado. Gilpin stars in the new season of The Lowdown. And she just won an Emmy for her work on Widow's Bay. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.