Plantation Lullabies
| Plantation Lullabies | ||||
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| Studio album by Me'Shell NdegéOcello | ||||
| Released | October 19, 1993 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 50:58 | |||
| Label | Maverick | |||
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| Me'Shell NdegéOcello chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Chicago Tribune | |
| Christgau's Consumer Guide |  |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music | |
| Entertainment Weekly | B+ |
| Rolling Stone |  |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
| Slant Magazine | |
Plantation Lullabies is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter and bassist Me'shell NdegéOcello. It was released by Maverick Records on October 19, 1993, to widespread critical acclaim and has since been viewed as a landmark neo soul record.
NdegéOcello recorded Plantation Lullabies after being one of the first artists to sign with Madonna's Maverick label. She worked with co-producer and multi-instrumentalist David Gamson on much of the record. NdegéOcello played all the rhythm instruments herself on the album, while accompanied in the recording sessions by backing players such as saxophonist Joshua Redman and guitarist Wah Wah Watson. Her music incorporated hip hop, funk, soul, and jazz elements; NdegéOcello was a fan of Prince, Miles Davis, A Tribe Called Quest, Sly Stone, and Parliament. In her songwriting, NdegéOcello explored themes of sexuality, gender, Black pride, and White racism from a perspective she described as Afrocentric.
Plantation Lullabies received widespread acclaim from contemporary critics.Rolling Stone was impressed by NdegéOcello's "mellow, majestic cool" style and "confident, intelligent sexuality", finding it "more potent than any crotch-grabbing shtick".Vibe journalist Christian Wright applauded her for fluidly "juxtaposing sound and sensibility that prevents bleeding-heart sentimentality" on an album that "explores the black condition with an intricate, seductive sound". Fellow Vibe critic Greg Tate hailed it as "the future of the funk" and "the Next Wave in Soul Music", while Brian Keizer of Spin deemed it "the kind of deep soul we need in this decade of disintegration", writing that NdegéOcello explores "the wage-slave pits, projects, and reservations of the present-day Pan-African world" with anger, nihilism, and on the romantic ballads, the "sublime grace" of Stevie Wonder.Entertainment Weekly was somewhat less enthusiastic, finding some of the singer's lyrics clichéd, the music overly fashionable, and her voice derivative of proto-rap performers such as Gil Scott-Heron, although the magazine said NdegéOcello "delivers her cool cocktail talk with a winning bluesy resignation". At the end of 1993, Plantation Lullabies appeared on numerous top-10 lists and was voted the year's 27th best album in the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics nationwide, published by The Village Voice.
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