Presented by the Yale School of Music and co-sponsored by the Yale Black Sound & the Archive Working Group and the Yale Schwarzman Center.
Halfway through Mehsell Ndegeocello's performance of No More Water — her Grammy-winning 2024 album of songs inspired by and contending with the work of writer and civil rights luminary James Baldwin — the famed musician and bandleader explained how she became connected to The Fire Next Time. She had never read Baldwin's 1963 classic until she was commissioned by Harlem Stage to write a piece about it. "It was life-changing," she said. "I carried it around in my pocket for three and a half years."
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