Meshell Ndegeocello has announced her second album for Blue Note Records. The new album is a tribute to James Baldwin and will be released on the 100th anniversary of the iconic author’s birth, August 2. Below, listen to the first two singles from the album, “Travel” and “Raise the Roof.”

Ndegeocello’s new album, No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin, follows The Omnichord Real Book, her 2023 Blue Note debut and the inaugural winner of the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Jazz Album.

Ndegeocello co-produced No More Water with guitarist Chris Bruce. She recorded the new album with Bruce, vocalist Justin Hicks, saxophonist Josh Johnson, keyboardist Jebin Bruni, and drummer Abe Rounds. Additional guests include poet Staceyann Chin, author and critic Hilton Als, vocalist Kenita R. Miller-Hicks, keyboardists Jake Sherman and Julius Rodriguez, and trumpeter Paul Thompson.

Read the Meshell Ndegeocello’s Sunday Review of Bitter.

No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin:

01 Travel
02 On the Mountain
03 Baldwin Manifesto I
04 Raise the Roof
05 The Price of the Ticket
06 What Did I Do?
07 Pride I
08 Pride II
09 Eyes
10 Trouble
11 Thus Sayeth the Lorde
12 Love
13 Hatred
14 Tsunami Rising
15 Another Country
16 Baldwin Manifesto II
17 Down at the Cross