the music of michelle lynn johnson better known as michelle endeaguelo reminds listeners that
the spirits of miles davis john coltrane and jimi hendrix still reside among the living no doubt one
of the most innovative artists of her generation her work incorporates a wide variety of influences
including funk soul jazz hip-hop reggae and rock the grammy winners received significant
critical acclaim throughout her career while also being credited for helping to spark the neo-soul
movement born in berlin germany and raised in washington dc michelle not only sings but also
raps and plays bass guitar my origins are just a complicated childhood born to a father in the
military a mother with an eighth grade education who was a domestic then add in all the american
issues of racism and american schooling and you have me but my dad's a musician so that was always
around me her father played tenor sax in the us army band and he was transferred to the washington
area when michelle was around three he also played in the inaugurations for two presidents michelle
says she got her love of jazz from him her other memories of her father though are not so pleasant
notably his relationship with her mother it was horrible watching the way my father treated my
mother and not feeling i could help her i've seen my father cheat on my mother several times
in front of my face and i wasn't strong enough to tell my mother that even though i knew she knew
i felt like i betrayed her by not telling her with everything going on at home it would have
been nice to have school be a little bit of a refuge but it wasn't michelle felt unattractive
especially after she cut off her hair at 16 and isolated because of her sexual orientation through
her brother she began learning about funk and other platforms then she started writing songs
and playing the bass she even began performing with groups boosting her confidence after high
school she honed her skills on the dc gogo circuit in the late 80s and had a brief stint studying
music history at howard university before finally moving to new york to make her dreams of a career
in music come true she was also a mother herself by now though she chooses not to talk about the
father later she adopted her surname which she says means free like a bird in swahili
or bird with a cello as other translations claim then she auditioned at one point to
become the bassist in rock band living color she was unsuccessful but she carried on sending out
homemade demos and before too long she came to the attention of no less a personage than madonna
who signed michelle to her maverick records label michelle was on her way
or so she thought when she actually got in the studio it was a totally different ball game
michelle felt so much self-imposed pressure that she went awol at one point for months during the
final stages of the recording process at this time she ended up addicted to crack everything happened
so fast i was playing a club and within a week or two weeks i was signed then i was in a studio
working 18 hours a day i thought i could handle it but i couldn't she told the la times in 1996 that
it was her love for her son in large part that gave her the strength to battle the addiction and
return to her career she's been clean ever since her debut album plantation lullabies would be
released in october 1993. it received widespread acclaim from contemporary critics and included
her first r b hit if that's your boyfriend he wasn't last night if that's your boyfriend
it didn't make too much of a mark on the billboard hot 100 but it did make it into
the top 20 on the r b charge the single also earned michelle nominations for both best r b
song and best female r b vocal performance at the 37th grammy awards the following year
she experienced her biggest hit to date with john mellencamp on a cover version of the van
morrison song wild night the track rose all the way to number three on the hot 100. peace beyond
passion michelle's sophomore album that came in 1996 would chart even better than her debut and
feature a couple of hits on the dance chart over the next two decades michelle would work with
everyone from chagacon and alana's morrissette to basement jacks and the rolling stones
as well as consistently release her own projects every few years whether people realized it or not
in fact in 2002 just before the release of her fourth album cookie the anthropological mixtape
the michigan daily made note in an interview with the artist that her work rarely received
play on mtv bet and bh1 they asked her if she was disappointed by this and if she would ever
cater to them not really it's cool those are just marketing tools i'm an artist i want to make art
i don't want to be a flash in the pan it's not who i am i just do what i do it's really that simple
i can only hope for the best people will find a record and have found it
i just try to be confident in those things another issue michelle's battle throughout her music
career is the focus on her sexuality i feel like my sexuality preceded my music for a long time
it was used as a marketing tool in the beginning pretty blatantly and i didn't really get it at
the time i was just out i didn't realize it was a selling point and it took a lot of years to
get any sense of privacy back into my life where people didn't feel entitled to talk to me about
who i was having sex with as if it weren't a personal question she told the boombox in 2014
she refuses to identify herself as being hetero or homosexual michelle's music has been featured
in a number of film soundtracks including how stella got her groove back love jones
loving basketball the best man higher learning and down in the delta in 2016 she provided the theme
song as well as various other soundtracks for the oprah winfrey network acclaimed series queen
sugar michelle's last studio album a project of covers titled ventriloquism was released in 2018
and pays tribute to some of the songs and artists who've influenced her
today michelle is married to a woman and has two children she continues to perform and can
currently be seen on a u.s cross-country tour with indie rock singer-songwriter andrew bird and indie
folk singer iron and wine thanks for watching please like share and comment also don't forget
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