SOUND PROJECTIONS

AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE

EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU

SPRING/SUMMER, 2015

VOLUME ONE NUMBER THREE

CHARLIE PARKER

Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:

DUKE ELLINGTON
April 25-May 1

ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO
May 2-May 8

ELLA FITZGERALD
May 9-15

DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER
May 16-May 22

MILES DAVIS
May 23-29

JILL SCOTT
May 30-June 5

REGINA CARTER
June 6-June 12

BETTY DAVIS
June 13-19

ERYKAH BADU
June 20-June 26

AL GREEN
June 27-July 3

CHUCK BERRY
July 4-July 10

SLY STONE
July 11-July 17

http://erykah-badu.com/newssystem/news.php

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/erykah-badu-mn0000170770/biography

Artist Biography

by John Bush

ERYKAH BADU

Active
1990s - 2010s
Born: February 26, 1971 in Dallas, TX
Genre: R&B
Styles: Alternative R&B Neo-Soul Adult Contemporary R&B Contemporary R&B
Also Known As Erica Abi Wright

She grew up listening to '70s soul and '80s hip-hop, but Erykah Badu drew more comparisons to Billie Holiday upon her breakout in 1997, after the release of her first album, Baduizm. The grooves and production on the album are bass-heavy R&B, but Badu's languorous, occasionally tortured vocals and delicate phrasing immediately removed her from the legion of cookie-cutter female R&B singers. A singer/songwriter responsible for all but one of the songs on Baduizm, she found a number 12 hit with her first single, "On & On," which pushed the album to number two on the charts.

Born Erica Wright in Dallas in 1971, Badu attended a school of the arts and was working as a teacher and part-time singer in her hometown when she opened for D'Angelo at a 1994 show. D'Angelo's manager, Kedar Massenburg, was impressed with the performance and hooked her up with the singer to record a cover of the Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell duet "Precious Love." He also signed Badu to his recently formed Kedar Entertainment label, and served as producer for Baduizm, which also starred bassist Ron Carter and members of hip-hop avatars the Roots on several tracks. The first single, "On & On," became a number one R&B hit in early 1997, and Baduizm followed it to the top of the R&B album charts by March. Opening for R&B acts as well as rap's Wu-Tang Clan, Erykah Badu stopped just short of number one on the pop album charts in April. Her Live album followed later in the year.

In 2000 she returned with her highly anticipated second studio album, Mama's Gun, which was co-produced by Badu, James Poyser, Bilal, and Jay Dee and contained the hit single "Bag Lady." Worldwide Underground, a loose affair billed as an EP despite being longer than many full-lengths, was released in 2003. Her next step, 2008's New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War, was a heavy and abstract release featuring collaborations with the members of Sa-Ra and Georgia Anne Muldrow; it reached number two on the Billboard 200 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. New Amerykah, Pt. 2: Return of the Ankh, looser and more playful than Pt. 1, followed in 2010.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/arts/music/02ryzi.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Music

The Mind of a One-Woman Multitude

Michael Nagle for The New York Times

“This is my museum,” the R&B singer Erykah Badu says of her apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. She also lives part of the time in Dallas, where she was born.

By MELENA RYZIK

March 2, 2008

New York Times

THE day after she finished her new album at Electric Lady Studios, the West Village recording shrine that Jimi Hendrix built, the multiplatinum R&B singer Erykah Badu was back in her surprisingly modest apartment in Brooklyn, puttering. In the tiny kitchen she poured organic pomegranate juice into a jelly jar, then stretched out on a mattress on the floor as “New AmErykah, Part One (4th World War),” just released by Universal Motown, played on her laptop. After weeks in the studio, she was so happy to be home that she refused to leave, rescheduling appointments and interviews around her domestic whim and one really, really good bath. (More on that later.)

Music from New AmErykah (myspace.com) Official Web Site

Johnny Nunez/WireImage.com

Ms. Badu with her son, Seven, in Washington in 2005.

Karl Walter/Getty Images

Ms. Badu in Los Angeles in 2005.

Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse

At the Nice Jazz Festival in France in 2006.

She patted the spot next to her; why not conduct an interview in bed?

“This is my museum,” Ms. Badu, 37, said of the rent-controlled one-bedroom in Fort Greene where she has lived on and off since coming to New York, demo tape in hand, 11 years ago from her native Dallas, where she was Erica Wright.

“Since I’ve been here I’ve had two children, a few boyfriends, a lot of records,” she continued in her slight, girly drawl. “Everyone that comes over here draws on the wall or leaves something. You’re looking at my mind when you’re looking at these things.” Decorating the hallway, for instance, is a three-foot-tall ankh; artwork by her 10-year-old son, Seven, underneath a magazine photo of his father, the rapper André Benjamin of OutKast; yellow caution tape; dried flowers; protest-style placards; and a metal trash can lid, hung on the wall like an art piece. (“I thought it was cute,” she said.)

As idiosyncratic as the memorabilia on her walls, her first full-length album in eight years is a dense, stylistic mash-up. By turns overtly political and intensely personal, with 1970s-groove instrumentation, hip-hop phrasing and a roster of beats and samples from collaborators like the D.J. and producer Madlib, it is fierce but weird. And apart from “Honey,” the bouncy, playful single, it is largely uncommercial. In his review for The New York Times, Ben Ratliff called it “a deep, murky swim in her brain.”

But after such a prolonged absence its release still feels like a comeback event. Thanks to Ms. Badu’s appealingly eccentric neo-soul sex goddess/funky earth mama/black power revolutionary persona, her pipe cleaner of a voice, thin and bendy, her sultry delivery and beauty, she’s still a potentially bankable star. (The designer Tom Ford recently named her the face of his forthcoming fragrance.) And with R&B sales down 18 percent last year, the industry seems willing to take a risk on an independent-minded artist, especially one with a following.

“I think Erykah is one of the few artists that truly does have a movement,” said Sylvia Rhone, the president of Universal Motown. “Her music has changed, but she’s been feeding people this creative change all these years, and she’s stayed very connected with her fan base,” through live performances, online groups and other projects like acting in movies. She added that while Janet Jackson’s new record may outsell hers at Best Buy and Target, “Erykah will dominate at the independent record stores.”

After a public bout of writer’s block that led to her “Frustrated Artist” tour in 2003 and 2004, Ms. Badu is eager to promote what she calls her magnum opus. “New AmErykah” is part of a creative torrent that includes a sequel record, due in the summer, and an unrelated retro-minded album, “Lowdown Loretta Brown,” scheduled for the fall, both on Universal Motown. Ms. Badu also plans to start a lifestyle magazine, The Freaq, this summer; the first issue will come with a copy of “New AmErykah: Part Two.” Both records will also be available on a U.S.B. stick for fans to plug into their computers; for added value Ms. Badu wants to record a U.S.B. commentary track to explain her references and inspiration. A tour will start in May.

“I swear to God, this must be my artistic peak,” Ms. Badu said in an earlier interview at Electric Lady, where she walked around barefoot, belled anklets jingling above her tiny manicured feet. “I hope my sexual peak comes soon too,” she added, and laughed. Then, switching to bohemian mama mode: “If something happened to me, I would want them to say, ‘This is what your mother was about.’ ”

Ms. Badu is “one of those performers that don’t necessarily fit in,” said Stephen Hill, executive vice president for music talent and programming at BET, which has been aggressively playing the video for “Honey.” “She creates music as she wants to, and then it’s up to the public to decide.” He added that the new album was “not like anything that’s out there, and that’s what makes it exciting,” especially when the mainstream music business feels slack.

Of course Ms. Badu already had a legacy to build on. Her debut album, “Baduizm,” released in 1997, sold nearly three million copies, winning her two Grammys and comparisons to Billie Holiday, Diana Ross and Chaka Khan. By the time her follow-up, “Mama’s Gun,” was released in 2000, she had earned a title: the queen of neo-soul. And she was part of an era of left-of-center black singer-songwriters like Jill Scott, Angie Stone and Macy Gray; her male counterparts included D’Angelo and Maxwell. Like Ms. Badu many of them struggled to keep their creative momentum, conflicted about their early mainstream success.

“I think most of us went through our psychosomatic, quasi-self-saboteur stage,” said ?uestlove, the drummer for the Philadelphia group the Roots and a member of what he called the Soulquarian scene, which flourished in the late ’90s and included Ms. Badu and other socially conscious acts like Talib Kweli and Common.

“Once we got that first taste of success, I think just the pressure of reacting got to all of us. Some of us released some of the craziest records of our career,” and some, like D’Angelo, retreated altogether, he said. As Ms. Badu’s popularity exploded, there was a backlash, he said. Her hair, her love life, her mystical beliefs all came into question. “Is she real or is she fake, is she pretentious?” he said. “She was thrown off.”

Suffering from writer’s block and plagued by self-doubt — “I felt like a failure,” Ms. Badu said — she soured on being the queen of neo-soul. “I hated that because what if I don’t do that anymore?” she said. “What if I change? Then that puts me in a penitentiary.”

She took time off to care for her two children — she also has a daughter, Puma, 3, with the rapper D.O.C. (Her kids’ beds, mattresses on the floor, are feet away from hers in her Brooklyn living room. The family mostly lives in a house in Dallas.) Meanwhile the music industry entered the digital age, and Ms. Badu, a self-described “analog girl in a digital world,” was in danger of being left behind.

But in 2004 ?uestlove gave her a computer — her first — for Christmas. She chatted online with producer friends like him, Q-Tip and J Dilla, and they began to bombard her with music. “Everybody sending me these things, saying, ‘Erykah, come on, we want you back, we need you to do this,’ ” Ms. Badu said.

Her son introduced her to GarageBand, the music-making program for Macs, and she was off. With the laptop, “I could be here, in my own space, with headphones on, and the kids could be doing what they doing, and I’m cooking dinner still, I’m making juices still, and it’s so easy just to sing,” she said. “You got an idea — boom! Idea, boom!”

In about a year she wrote more than 75 songs, many of which she split among the three albums. Lyrically “New AmErykah” is charged by a rambling political fervor and a level of introspection that were only hinted at in her previous work. There is hard-boiled speechifying laced with Nation of Islam exultations and occasional clarity. (On “Me,” she gives a succinct autobiography: “Had two babies different dudes/ thought for them both my love was true/ that’s just me,” she sings. “Will I escape this vanity/or will I keep on smoking trees?”) Guest musicians include the jazz vibraphonist Roy Ayers and the Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. Ms. Badu said she did not have a sound in mind for the “New AmErykah” records. “I’m just giving my testimony,” she said.

The inventive video for “Honey” shows her image inserted into more than a dozen classic album covers, from the Beatles’ “Let It Be” to De La Soul’s “3 Feet High and Rising,” with hairstyles to match. (She makes a particularly convincing Grace Jones.) She conceived it herself, she said, a fitting choice for someone with an ever-evolving, outsize style. The bedroom in her apartment serves mostly as a storage space for a tangle of costumes and Afro wigs (her look for the new album). During the two interviews she once wore a pair of Carol Channingesque black glasses (sans lenses) and once had fake freckles drawn on her cheeks, and never looked any less stunning.

“You know, you cannot look Erykah Badu directly in the eye,” Mr. Hill said. “She will suck you in, and you just want to follow her and make sure everything works out for her.”
?uestlove agreed. When Ms. Badu arrived in Philadelphia to record in the late ’90s, “I noticed that our entire community suddenly wanted to pay us a visit,” he said. “It was like everyone she met fell in love with her within five minutes.”

“We thought we was gonna be fighting each other” over her, he added.

Ms. Badu wouldn’t say who she’s dating now, but “I haven’t been single since I was 5,” she said. “Ego has to have a boyfriend.”

As mystical as Ms. Badu’s interests are — ancient Egypt, which she calls Kemet, astrology and the power of positive thinking, á la “The Secret” — she is equally grounded in the realities of the contemporary music business.

“I know Erykah Badu is a brand,” she said. “And I try to make sure that I’m on point with that — every part of me. I’m healthy. I make sure I’m at the meeting. I try to be on time.”

“Try” may be the operative word. Her publicist, working at a computer nearby, looked up skeptically when she said this. “Carla, keep typing,” Ms. Badu said mock-authoritatively. She smiled and added, “Hey, procrastination is living.”

As her publicist no doubt knew, on the morning of the interview Ms. Badu’s procrastination included a Very Important and Much-Delayed Bath. It was so relaxing and emotionally potent — she talked about it in response to a question about finding her spirituality — that it led to the cancellation of a photo shoot and other meetings.

“I hadn’t been away from that studio, girrrl — I was using the funk,” she said. “That’s why you hear it, I was so funky.”

As she floated in the tub (“I always go all the way underneath the water and try to hold my breath a long time,” she said), she had a revelation: “Different thoughts kept coming into my head. The first thought was, ooh, I wonder if my hair gonna be cute when I get out. And then another voice over me said, Ego, we need you, we’re going to need you for our mission. And another voice over my head goes, oh, Willpower, bless your heart, you’re going to be stronger soon. And then another voice — oh Heart, you’re so compassionate, you have to toughen up a little.

“I figured out, like, wow, all of these things in me are fighting to have a space all the time, and it’s like a dialogue going on inside of me all the time.”

Ms. Badu is certain her fans are now ready to hear it. “Being humble is so 2007,” she said. “Trust me.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 16, 2008 Because of an editing error, an article on March 2 about the singer Erykah Badu misstated the name of the song on her new album whose lyrics offer a succinct autobiography. It is “Me,” not “M.”

The Soul and Science of Erykah Badu

R&B's hippie high priestess blasts off into outer space with New Amerykah Part Two,' her freakiest, funkiest album ever

By Jenny Eliscu

April 15, 2010

Rolling Stone

When most musicians meet their fans, they get asked questions about songwriting or life on the road. But Erykah Badu's fans go straight for the astral plane. Backstage after a recent show in Oakland, the singer – wearing a black top hat, tailcoat and sequined genie pants – finishes breastfeeding her one-year-old daughter, Mars, and heads to a roomful of fans with the baby in her arms. A young black woman with long braids and a flowing skirt stands up and says, "I want to talk to you on a level of what's happening with the return of the goddess on a spiritual level." She struggles to articulate a question but ends up with: "As we return to this planet in a more greater way of forcing taking over, I wanna hear what your views are on matriarchy and how we embrace our brothers along the way." Badu pauses. "Urn, that's a tricky question," she says. "The pattern I see is the return of balance through femininity, through the mother, through the womb. The universe comes out of a wombiverse. What I see is woman's return to her throne, beside her king. I think it's a return to self-sufficiency. It's a return to ourselves, and that's how we lead."

For 13 years, Badu has explored the outer reaches of the musical wombiverse with increasingly ambitious, exploratory and eccentric records. Her latest, New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh, blends soul, hip-hop, R&B, jazz, blues and genre-defying Badu weirdness with even greater confidence and ease. (It's the sequel to her seriously funky 2008 disc, New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War.)

Along the way, she has earned 20 Grammy nominations, four wins and far-reaching influence on adventurous young artists of all stripes. "I love it when somebody takes the time to be fucked up," says Jim James of My Morning Jacket, who have made a live staple out of a bombastic, bluesy version of Badu's 1997 tune "Tyrone." "There's so much mystery and passion in her music. Her last album was one of those records like [Sly and the Family Stone's] There's a Riot Goin' On, where on first listen you're like, 'God, that kind of sounds like shit.' But the more you listen, the more you go, 'That's the most real thing I've heard in so long.'"

Badu grew up in Dallas and still lives there, 10 minutes from her mom, Queenie, and both of her grandmothers. Before you even get to the front door of her rustic waterfront split-level, you hear music. On one recent afternoon, the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" blasts from a speaker on a third-floor balcony. When Badu answers the door in a pink nightgown, her eyes are still sleepy slits. "I just got up, like, five minutes ago," says the singer, who was awake past 7 a.m. putting finishing touches on her record. Earthy incense hangs in the air, and the music – Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine" comes next – is joined every half-hour by a computerized voice robotically announcing the time: "It's 4 p.m."

On one wall, above a copy of the Periodic Table of the Elements, a massive canvas silk-screened with a photo of Palestinian militant Leila Khaled hangs across from a picture of Harriet Tubman. A lamp in the shape of a gold AK-47 sits next to a photo of Badu's mother and a cardboard cutout of President Obama. Terra-cotta tiles inscribed with a poem from her 2000 album Mama's Gun run along a wall leading upstairs. Badu lives here with her 12-year-old son, Seven; and daughters Puma, 6, and Mars, born in the singer's bed just a year ago. (Puma was also born here; Seven – whose father is OutKast's André 3000 – was delivered at Badu's mother's house.)

She asks me to join her in the kitchen for some tea – a homeopathic cure-all she calls "a Badu brew" that includes dark maple syrup, echinacea, cayenne, myrrh and herbs from the yard. The kitchen, she explains, is the epicenter of most family activity. "It's a lab and a cafe," says Badu, a vegetarian since high school. "We do a lot of cooking, a lot of growing, a lot of cocoa-making, a lot of juicing."

Along with artists like the Roots, D'Angelo and Mos Def, Badu helped build a new soul groove around impeccable live musicianship – bass (often upright), drums and Rhodes keyboard. Her 1997 debut, Baduizm, hit Number Two and won her a Grammy for Best R&B Album. From the start, she refused to equivocate. "I went to the label with a 19-song album and said, 'This is my record,'" she says. "There was no iTunes then, but I was definitely not no 99-cent iTunes chick, from the beginning. I'm involved in every aspect of packaging, marketing; I write and direct all my videos; I do my own hair and makeup. My record label is called Control FreaQ. Records, because there's nothing freaky about controlling your image and your art."

Born Erica Abi Wright, the singer was raised in South Dallas by her mother, Kolleen Wright, and paternal grandmother. "I come from a long line of matriarchs," says Badu, whose father, William, was absent for most of her childhood and passed away in 2001. Queenie adds, "Her younger sister and brother were kind of chill, but Erykah was the child who'd fall down on the floor screaming to get her point across."

Badu started singing when she was four in a kids' arts program at a nearby rec center. As a teen, she studied dance and acting at Dallas' prestigious Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. But she began to come into her own artistic persona at age 19, when she changed the spelling of her name to "Erykah" as a way of discarding what she considered her "slave name." (She chose the spelling because it includes the Egyptian word kah, for "inner light." "Badu" came years later, inspired by the scat phrase "ba-doo," though she later learned it also means "to manifest light and truth" in Arabic.)

She studied theater and physics at Grambling State University but dropped out just before graduation. "I kind of got disenchanted because I knew what I wanted to do," she says. For a few years after college, she worked at the South Dallas Cultural Center teaching kids dance, theater, music, math and science. Her first showbiz experience was working at Steve Harvey's comedy house booking performers, manning the ticket booth and warming up the audience before Harvey went on. "They had to get a hook to pull me offstage," Badu says with a chuckle. "When I saw Steve and how he worked, I thought, 'I can do this.'"

Performing with her cousin, Robert "Free" Bradford, in a duo called Erykah Free, she caught the attention of manager Kedar Massenburg, who had recently signed D'Angelo, and he took Badu on as a client. "There was no Plan B in case it didn't work," Badu says. "My mama didn't want me to expect things not to work. I try to teach my kids the same thing – if you invite in negativity, then you gotta feed it and hang out with it. Best not to invite it in the first place."

Five albums into her career, Badu has settled into a comfortable rhythm. Her boyfriend – and Mars' dad — rapper Jay Electronica, has his own place nearby, so she has plenty of time for solitary contemplation. She maintains contact with all three of her children's dads and says she'd love to have more children. "What a beautiful little opportunity to love someone unconditionally and help guide its destiny," she says. "I dated only one person who came from a two-parent house, and in my culture, it's not a surprise to see single parents holding it down."

Tonight, Badu is lying on her stomach on the floor of the TV room, her laptop on a pillow in front of her, working on Return of the Ankh's liner notes. She takes breaks to feed Mars or help Seven with his homework. "I saw another person evolve when she had Seven," says Queenie. "She was a real mommy from the beginning. It's like she knew exactly what she was supposed to do and how to be a mother. I don't know whether she read up on it or prayed on it, but she was real loving, real nurturing and very, very prepared."

Though Badu's music has always included biblical metaphors and spiritual lyrics, she doesn't adhere to any organized religion. ("Art is my religion," she says.) But the singer is intensely curious about the metaphysical: "I think the atoms in the body rotate at the same rate and on the same axis as the Earth, so that when the Earth speeds up vibrationals, so do the atoms in our body," she says. "The more things the Earth goes through, the more things the body goes through, and our brains are not separate from that."

She'd rather talk science than politics. Her friend Kyle Goen – the artist who made the Leila Khaled portrait – drops by and makes a joke about avoiding driving on Dallas' President George Bush Turnpike. Badu mutters, "I don't even know why we get mad at George Bush. For what?" Goen starts to answer, and she interrupts, "Yeah, but why? They're doing a job that was written for them to do. They're following a script. We need a new bowlin' alley – a whole new setup, a whole new thing. It's not just the individual. The next leader is gonna do the same thing, in a truth disguise."

The conversation turns to Obama, though no one mentions the president by name. "I expected the war in Iraq to end," Goen says, trying to reason with her. "I expected Guantánamo Bay to close."

"That's delusional," Badu says.

"The man said he was against these things!" he responds,.

Badu gets frustrated. "He's a politician," she says. A few minutes later, when Queenie brings home the kids, Badu seems relieved to have the conversation brought to a close. A couple of days later, I ask her what subjects she's still willing to get into an argument about. "In the kitchen, when we were talking about politics, it didn't feel useful," she says. "We don't know what the agenda is. I don't have enough data, so I can't really say. I do believe that getting outside of my mind is one of the most valuable things that I have adopted, not worrying about things that don't really exist."

Lately, she's been thinking that life is a long "process of elimination, of unlearning." Last night was her 39th birthday, and she celebrated with her mom, kids, grandmas, uncles, great-uncles, niece, nephews, cousins. "It's a tradition that everybody gives a little speech about the guest of honor," Badu says. "My uncle said, 'Like I told you when you were little: Whatever you want to be, that's what I want you to be. And if you don't want to be shit, I don't want you to be shit.' It was hilarious to me. What that means is he knows that my life doesn't belong to him, it's all a part of my learning. When I look at my grandma, she does the exact same thing every day, and she's so much at peace. Sometimes I try to adopt her pattern of thinking. There's an old woman inside of me that's so coldblooded that I can't wait to meet her."

This story is from the April 15th, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone.

From The Archives Issue 1102: April 15, 2010

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-soul-and-science-of-erykah-badu-20100415#ixzz3dbuQqzWT
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http://www.avclub.com/review/erykah-badu-emmamas-gunem-21981

Erykah Badu

Album: Mama's Gun

by Keith Phipps

Nov 21, 2000

A. V. Club

From its audacious title through its final note, Erykah Badu's 1997 debut Baduizm announced the arrival of a new force in contemporary R&B. Influenced by hip-hop in attitude but leaning heavily on older traditions, the album found Badu stepping forward to fill a void with aching, earthy bohemianism and a sound that recalled rich jazz and R&B traditions of the past without crossing into Lenny Kravitz-style retro-mimicry. Three years on, Badu has returned to a music scene she helped shape, having paved the way for Macy Gray and others. But if Badu is worried about proving anything, her sophomore album Mama's Gun doesn't let it show. A little grittier and with just the right amount of added ambition, Mama's Gun picks up where Baduizm left off. Badu fiddled with the album's song sequence until the last minute—due to missed deadlines, only the face of the CD itself bears the correct running order—but the results suggest that she got it right. Beginning with the mournful and angry "Penitentiary Philosophy," Gun's songs portray the trials of a willful young woman in a world filled with hardships, unworthy lovers, and soul-stealing temptations. Finding happiness on "Orange Moon" and the Stephen Marley duet "In Love With You," Badu's voice becomes one of the sweetest instruments around. But the innate toughness is always apparent, rising to the surface on "Bag Lady" (an anti-materialism anthem) and "A.D. 2000" (an Amadou Diallo lament) and making clear the grand, spiritual themes at play in Badu's music. Factor in the deceptively simple arrangements, a lovely breakup suite ("Green Eyes"), and near-infinite replay value, and it becomes clear that it'll take at least another three years for the world to catch up with this one, too.

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/music/201111/erykah-badu-gq-music-issue

In the mid-'90s, a record executive named Kedar Massenburg coined the term "neo-soul" to describe a new breed of R&B artists—particularly D'Angelo, Maxwell, Lauryn Hill, and a certain head-wrapped chanteuse from Dallas—who defined the incense-fogged utopianism of the period. The name stuck, but Erykah Badu, now 40, never loved the label—fortunately she outlasted that moment in music. Or rather, she transcended it. First with the sultry, ballsy "Tyrone," letting her freak flag fly both sonically and follicly, through more than a decade of jams, and into the future with her recent New AmErykah diptych. Badu talks here about growing up in Dallas, getting inspired by Steve Harvey, and learning to keep it real from Mahalia Jackson and her grandmother.

GQ: What inspires you?
Erykah Badu: Artists need some kind of stimulating experience a lot of times, which crystallizes when you sing about it or paint it or sculpt it. You literally mold the experience the way you want. It's therapy.

GQ: What was the experience that spawned your last two albums, New AmErykah Part One and Part Two?
Erykah Badu: I didn't have a vision for it. I don't think about that before I start writing. Not until a body of work starts to appear do I think about a concept for it. It's usually not because of what I'm saying, it's because of the frequency of the music—it all sounds right together, you know? Certain kinds of music make me write about a certain kind of thing.

GQ: What about when you're putting a tour together?
Erykah Badu: That's different. When you're doing an album, you're perfecting a moment in time that will be like that forever. When you're performing, you're creating a moment. It's a different mindset, you know? You need that immediate feedback from the audience, who have come for the same reason you came. It's more fun, with less deadlines and pressure, and a lot more freedom.

GQ: How often do you change your set list?
Erykah Badu: We have a certain set we rehearse, and then, depending on how the audience is feeling, I change it up. Like for [the festival] Rock the Bells, I was supposed to be doing [her 1997 debut album] Baduizm in its entirety and that's kind of wild. That was not written to be done as a live album.

GQ: What's it like going back to that record now?
Erykah Badu: I do a lot of it in my shows. The whole thing, from beginning to end. It matters to me, where I was at that time, the things I remember going through.

GQ: How are you different now?
Erykah Badu: I'm more experienced in certain areas but I have the same me to evolve as I did then.

GQ: Back in 1997, there was a lot of attention being paid to neo-soul. Did you feel a part of that moment?
Erykah Badu: It was constructed outside of us. I think titles in music are mainly constructed to categorize things to sell units. If I can speak for a lot of artists who feel the same way I do, it doesn't really matter. I don't have one song that sounds like another one in my entire catalog. It only sounds alike because I'm present in all of it.

GQ: Would you change anything about the way you handled the start of your career?
Erykah Badu: Nope.

GQ: You're happy with how everything played out?
Erykah Badu: Absolutely. I don't have a horror story at all.

GQ: How did you get started as a singer?
Erykah Badu: I had been a theater major and a dancer for most of my life, from the time I was 4 years old. I liked singing and any kind of art and I knew this love for art and this practicing would be my career at some point. I just didn't know if it'd be theater or film. I wrote my first song when I was in a group with my cousin, called "Apple Tree." My cousin liked the song; he played it for people and they liked it, and I said, "Alright, another one!"—and on and on, until we had put together a 14-song demo in Dallas in his room. We took a couple of pictures and we were called Erykah Free—his name was Free. But in my heart, I didn't want to be in a group. I wanted to be a solo artist. I'm a warrior, a lone kind of chick. We separated and I moved to New York and auditioned for many labels and they didn't really get it. A couple put me into artist development—a Special Ed kind of thing [laughs]. Then I met this guy, Kedar Massenburg, who was managing D'Angelo at the time, and he understood what I was doing. He also understood that what me and D'Angelo had in common was not that we sounded alike, but that we didn't sound like what was happening [in music at the time]. That's how Kedar put it. He asked me to open for D'Angelo when he went to Dallas and Kedar really liked what he heard and both of us got a deal at Universal and I've been there ever since. I've been moved to Motown 'cause they divide you up like cattle in different sections of the system—the machine [laughs]. Anyway, Baduizm came out the way it was as a demo. I added a few songs from The Roots whom I did not know until I moved to New York. "The Other Side of the Game" turned out to be my favorite song to perform live. Period.

GQ: You were a rapper at one point, too. Was there a time when being an MC seemed more likely for you than being a singer?
Erykah Badu: That was back when I was in college. I went to [Grambling State] university from 1989 to '93 to study theater, so I was an actor at that point. It wasn't my aspiration to be a singer, it was to be an artist. When I was 23 or 24, I was rapping and emceeing a lot with Free, but I was also working at Steve Harvey's comedy house. He was my boss—the best boss ever. Funny, generous, considerate, and he knew I was an artist. When I started working there I was a waitress, and somehow I became a hostess. When he knew he could trust me, he moved me to the ticket booth. I handled money and helped organize transportation and hotel reservations for the comedians that came in. I noticed Steve didn't have a stage manager, so I got that job, making sure everybody was taken care of. I love being of service to people—the whole act of it is really great to me. One day Steve was late going onstage, so I went out to the mic and threw out some jokes and stuff. People were laughing and heckling and having fun and Steve came onstage and scolded me in front of everybody. It was so funny. We started doing it every night. [Laughs] It felt like, This is where I want to be. Steve was really inspirational in that.

GQ: Do you remember when you first sang in public?
Erykah Badu: I was five or something. At school. I was in a Christmas play in kindergarten. There was a part of a little boy who sings "Somebody Snitched on Me," and all the boys in my class were in line auditioning. So I got in line, too. It was acting, and I figured I could act like a boy. The music teacher, Ms. Goodman, who had a big influence on me, encouraged me to do it. The other kids were laughing, but I was like, I'm serious, I can pull this off if you give me the opportunity. That was the first time. I was petrified and at first my voice and hands were shaking, but when I saw people having that look—the look I always look for, the I'm happy for you look—I knew I was doing a good job. I got unscared and, you know, pulled some antics, and that was my first time.

GQ: When you were making that demo with Free, did you ever imagine you'd end up where you are now?
Erykah Badu: I just knew it felt good and I had a real competitive spirit, just wanting to be accepted among my peers. I didn't know. I still don't know. I try to be honest and I keep moving.

GQ: What was Texas like when you were growing up?
Erykah Badu: Texas, to me, was my school, home, my Church sometimes, the movies sometimes. My world was in my head—it still is. I didn't know who was poor or rich. My mom and grandma and everybody just made it a good time all the time. Music was always going. My grandmother was very, very hard, and I saw that, but we would always be laughing. I got two grandmothers and my mother's mother and father's mother are both in their 80s and still alive and still—how do I put it?—actively opinionated. [laughs] And I trust them dearly. My grandmother on my father's side bought me a piano when I was seven. I didn't know how to read music, so she'd put the charts up, and she don't know how to read either, so I would pretend. If she hears this interview, then she'll know that, otherwise she'll never know! I wrote the first song on that piano and she sang. She has a beautiful voice. It reminds me of [starts singing] Soon I will be done... [stops singing]. What's that lady's name? An old gospel singer. Very famous.

GQ: Mahalia Jackson?
Erykah Badu: Yes! She was a straitlaced grandmother, very religious. If I had to sing something on the piano, it couldn't be saying baby or nothing, it had to be Jesus. It had to mean something.

GQ: How did that influence you?
Erykah Badu: Greatly! I still carry that with me. Not literally, but I understand the lesson, which is, Make sure it's real. When you do it, it gotta be real, or that's not it. That is something I carry with me in my pocket.

GQ: Did your mother encourage you being an artist?
Erykah Badu: Hell yeah. She's my number-one fan, supporter, and everything. I don't know nothing about failing as a result of what she says to me. "You're gonna win. You're the best. Don't worry about it. You got it. You're the dopest. They can't fuck with you." That's her. All day. That's, to me, an example of great parenting. Maybe we missed a couple things, some name-brand cookies, but I had everything.

GQ: What did she think of your moving to New York?
Erykah Badu: Same thing. She encouraged me. She saw it before me, you know? She knew what was going to happen because she saw how much time I put into my craft. She made it available to me. Instead of going to summer school, go to summer art camp. She would meet people in charge of certain programs, and we'd get in for free—different art programs and things. She knew. She noticed it. My mom is an artist in her own way, not in the same way I am, but she recognized that I had a talent. [long pause] She didn't push me to do it, or make it something I had to do; I didn't feel like I was living vicariously through her. She knew what was up, you know? She rarely came to the shows. She had other stuff she needed to do. But I showed her the pictures, what I wore. She knew. We had such a great relationship.

GQ: Your style is like nobody else. Where did that come from?
Erykah Badu: That's just what I was. That's what I love about Kedar: He didn't say anything about that. I felt embraced by him. It just so happens that it was something fresh to people. I try to keep it fresh, you know? I enjoy it. It's art, for me. It's a functional art.

GQ: What's next thing for you?
Erykah Badu: I'm recording an album right now, with [experimental music producer] Flying Lotus. I'm touring. But things are slowing down now 'cause my children are in school again. [Badu has three children: a son with Andre 3000; a daughter with rapper the D.O.C.; and a daughter with rapper Jay Electronica.] This is the time of year when we all nest in our little home in Dallas and cook breakfast and all those things we been doin' on tour, just in one place. I'm kind of a recluse when it comes to going outside.

GQ: How did you and Flying Lotus hook up?
Erykah Badu: We were talking to each other on MySpace years ago when MySpace was a thing. Social networking was how we hooked up. I told him I'd be in L.A. and he came over to Steve Wilson's house—Stevie is a psychedelic guitar player, a great musician. If both of our worlds can meet and we feel good about it, it's going to be something dope.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/11562-new-amerykah-part-one-4th-world-war/

Erykah Badu

New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War

Motown; 2008

RATING: 7.8

By Nitsuh Abebe

June 6, 2008

Pitchfork

The American media and public have spent a fair bit of the past months being fascinated and appalled by various remarks from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, of Chicago. Those months have also seen a fairly warm critical reception for Erykah Badu's terrific new album-- one whose notions and ideologies sometimes come from the same nexus as Wright's. Badu's theology is different, of course: more personal, more scattered, less Christian, laced with Five-Percenter notions. And Badu salutes Farrakhan explicitly, rather than just nodding politely across the South Side. But there's an odd echo in her wording on that one: "I salute you, Farrakhan/ Because you are me." Less than a month after this record's release, Wright's most notable acquaintance was describing the reverend as someone who "contains within him the contradictions-- the good and the bad-- of the community.... I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." He is me? Until he hits the press club, anyway.

New Amerykah is the first in a series of pointedly social records from Badu, and "you are me"-- or maybe we are we-- could be its motto, or possibly its intended effect. I don't bring up politics for nothing. That attitude, and a lot of the record's concerns, have their roots in the same era that animates Rev. Wright-- those Civil Rights and post-Civil Rights moments when African-Americans were left with some strange, heavy tasks: sorting out how to have a cultural identity as part of a nation that had, up until very recently, been a dedicated adversary, and sorting out how to clean up the wreckage that had accumulated in the meantime. A lot of the critical love for New Amerykah seems rooted in a love for the music of that period-- a time in which popular black artists made records filled not only with visionary, avant-garde sounds, but with a social expansiveness, a fire and ambition to say something important to and for a community. Reviews put this record in a line with those artists: Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, Funkadelic; you could tie it even more easily to a lot of smart-guy late-80s hip-hop digging into the same ideas. Nobody who's been paying attention will be surprised at the thought of that mantle being picked up by a woman.

This album doesn't just have the personal and social ambitions of those old records-- plenty of charmless "nu-soul" records aspire to that-- but some of the sonic ones, too. Big tracks aside, it's an awfully static record, which gives it the kind of high-art "difficulty" that we critics have been known to like. The beats, by hip-hop producers like Madlib, 9th Wonder, and Shafiq Husayn, trail sneakily by, leaving Badu-- without the aid of verses, choruses, or much structure at all-- to scribble all over them in her perfect/imperfect voice. (One track, "My People", is mostly just a repeated mantra; the rest of Badu's vocal scribbling is buried far back in the mix, like an incidental decoration.) These things should pose problems; one of the chief wonders of New Amerykah is that they don't. Instead, they allow for a sense of intimacy and freedom. At the end of one already-great track, there's an offhand doodle that's one of the most amazing pieces of music I've heard all year: It's just Badu, with some chatter in the background, singing her mother's history in unison with a muted trumpet. But you can hear the two musicians working happily to stay in unison, all through a complex jazz run, even trying to match their vibratos; you can imagine the takes where they miss it and laugh a little. It makes a little joke, and it closes on a terrific line about her mother's resilience-- "Even though it was hard, you would never ever know it"-- and in the end I can't think of a nobler use for recording equipment.

It's those personal moments that sell things, even more so than in Badu's back catalog; credit usually goes to her gift of a voice, which she uses impressionistically instead of composing, but it's always been her keen writing about people that gives her tracks much of their shape. The trumpet comes at the end of a track called "Me", which despite the title is more candid than narcissistic-- a gorgeous, sunny, soft-soul beat over which Badu sings about getting older, getting thicker, having two kids with different fathers. That candor is also a lot of what sells Badu's social concerns, which could otherwise sound like a laundry list of black-community struggles: poverty, urban violence, bad policing, AIDS, the psychological hard spot of teenage girls, complacency, and get-mine nihilism versus hope for something else. These things get filtered through Badu's head into real scenery instead of placeholders, and folded in among other things that seem remarkably sincere and personal: mourning for the late producer J Dilla, an earnest belief in hip-hop as a uniting culture, and that we is we attitude. Even the beats wind up feeling earnest. The bulk of them are dark, blunted, woozy, and paranoid; the exceptions are light, breezy, calm. But all of them feel like walking out onto an empty big-city sidewalk in the hours after sunrise, when everything's chilly, dewy, and strange.
There are times, as the album drags on, where that static darkness really does become a problem-- where the record begins to seem indulgent, half-finished, or slapped together. Part of the marvel of it, though, is how she still pulls this off, every bit of it, on sheer...Baduizm: Even when she seems wrong, or dippy, or maybe a little batty, she's still a ridiculously compelling and likable personality. This is something no one should criticize in music: recognizable, complex, three-dimensional character. Neither should we be too skeptical about people inclined to laud this as a strong new flash of old-style, socially engaged r&b: Those ambitions are worth praising, and those eras worth looking back on, so long as it doesn't come along with the mean-spirited, bad-faith complaint that "all" of today's black music is "just about guns/sex/money," or with this free-floating idea that the experiences of black people must always be treated as a socio-political "issue". Badu's difficult and complicated, and not even in a self-absorbed way-- it makes for good, deep records and shows that'll never start on time. ("Time is for white people," she recently joked to Blender, one-upping the old line about running on African Time.) I don't know if we're still voting for public policy based on who we'd rather have a beer with, but it occurs to me that I don't know many people who wouldn't love to grab a drink with Badu.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14095-new-amerykah-part-two-return-of-the-ankh/

Erykah Badu

New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh

Motown; 2009
RATING: 8.0

By Mike Powell

April 6, 2010

Pitchfork

Erykah Badu's a narcissist, but narcissism is her art. The title of her debut album, Baduizm, turned her name into a religion, a concept. On 2008's New Amerykah: Part One, she sang, "Everything around you see/ The ankhs, the wraps, the plus degrees/ And, yes, even the mysteries-- it's all me." It's not that she ignores the world at large, it's that she invariably draws her observations and opinions back to home base: herself, her family, her experience, her music. She and her boyfriend Jay Electronica took turns tweeting through her third pregnancy. ("I see the head, full of hair" read one Biblically paced message.) She named the baby Mars.

After Baduizm, she kept writing vocal lines and melodies but loosened her song structures to the point that her albums sounded like a series of digressions. The pose she struck on record became increasingly informal. Her final statements became ellipses. The change wasn't a drop in quality, but a shift in style. Mama's Gun and Worldwide Underground (from 2000 and 2003, respectively) are albums that, at best, sound like music that was made with no effort and very little planning. And though there's never any doubt that she's the center of attention, she started singing like she was off to the side. In its own way, Badu's music is ambient music: It drifts, ebbs, and flows. The verses don't have to hang together as long as the mood does.

2008's New Amerykah Part One was an unusually dark, hard album for her. Instead of the precedent for India.Arie, she was the echo of Sly Stone: fucked-up, long-winded, and overflowing. In her own way, Badu is always protesting something-- the way people betray themselves to be accepted by society, the way society forces people to stop being individuals-- but New Amerykah was almost like a historical re-enactment of a "protest album": the government is watching you, America eats its young, etc. The coffeehouse Afrocentrism of Baduizm was wiped out by producers like Madlib and Dilla, whose collage style is as forward-thinking as it is backward-looking.

New Amerykah Two, by comparison, is a return to the kind of music Badu was making in 2003: relaxed, personal funk that scans more like a sketchbook than an album. Considering this album was being promised as soon as Part One came out, I can imagine someone getting pissy at the inclusion of minute-long half-thoughts like "Agitation" and "You Loving Me (Session)", but... so what? They're funny, memorable, and most importantly, they're hers. And her ability to toe the line between sounding effortless and sounding tossed-off is remarkable-- it illustrates the big, variable personality she's always claiming to have. My least favorite song here is actually the one that sounds like she's really trying: the 10-minute, multi-part "Out My Mind, Just in Time".

Most of the lyrics here dwell on relationships, which Badu handles with a confidence and informality that most of square-ass, tax-filing society just hasn't caught up to and probably never will. ("Had two babies, different dudes," she sang on 2008's "Me"-- "and for them both my love is true.") Badu wants a window seat and nobody sitting next to her. Badu is fucking your friends and laughs about it. There's satire, too-- "Turn Me Away (Get Munny)", where she plays a vapid nag who just decided she really, really loves you. There's a song actually called "Fall in Love (Your Funeral)". But despite the breadth of attitudes toward love, there's no angst, which makes it an uplifting experience-- it's like Badu is actually convinced that life goes on.

There's stuff here that is empty excess-- about three minutes of "Love", for example, or the drowsy instrumental "Incense" (basically a collaboration between Madlib and harpist Kirsten Agnesta). But for the most part I appreciate the ease of the album-- it's really the first time I feel like I'm understanding her, actually. Her art is her life, and her life-- like anyone's-- is too messy and varied to contain. Whether or not it's her responsibility to distill and make sense of it all is beside the point. To invoke Badu logic, Part Two just is what it is-- a coherent expression of a big, scattered personality.

THE MUSIC OF ERYKAH BADU: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH MS. BADU:

Erykah Badu Greatest Hits Full Album #REMINIZZZ

Reminizzz is the new Music streaming / Social-networking app. To JOIN the circle, CLICK HERE : http://www.reminizzztheapp.com

The Roots and Erykah Badu Live Concert Roots Picnic Philly 2015--(This concert is smoking!):

Erykah Badu--"Honey"-- Live

"Sugar got a long way to catch you..."

Mix - Erykah Badu - "Other Side Of The Game"

Music video by Erykah Badu performing Other Side Of The Game. (C) 1997 Kedar Entertainment / Universal Records Inc.

Erykah Badu - "Bag Lady"

Erykah Badu - "Honey"

Erykah Badu - "On & On"

Music video by Erykah Badu performing On And On. (C) 1997 Kedar Entertainment / Universal Records Inc.

Erykah Badu Live LP 2009

01. Intro Performing (Creating A Moment)
02. Badu
03. Annie
04. Me
05. Soldier
06. Didn't Cha Know
07. Other Side Of The Game
08. Honey
09. The Healer
10. Searching
11. Stay (Chaka Khan Cover)
12. Love Hangover (Diana Ross Cover)
13. Your Mind
14. A Cipher
15. Ye-Yo
16. Next Lifetime

Erykah Badu - 'Worldwide Underground' FULL ALBUM

TRACKLIST:

Track 1 0:00 - BACK IN THE DAY (PUFF)
Track 2 4:47 - BUMP IT
Track 3 13:36 - DANGER
Track 4 19:25 - I WANT YOU
Track 5 30:18 - WORLD KEEPS TURNIN'
Track 6 31:57 - LOVE OF MY LIFE WORLDWIDE FT. QUEEN LATIFAH & ANGIE STONE & BAHAMADIA
Track 7 37:23 - WORLD KEEPS TURNIN'
Track 8 41:28 - THE GRIND
Track 9 44:18 - THINK TWICE
Track 10 47:20 - WOO
Track 11 50:34 - HOLLYWOOD
Track 12 56:06 - LOVE OF MY LIFE (AN ODE TO HIP HOP) FT. COMMON

Erykah Badu - "Afro Blue"

BADU Retrospective
1997-2012
Robert Glasper's Experiment Black Radio Project

"In love with you"--Erykah Badu feat. Stephen Marley

Erykah Badu Live - Full Album 1997

Erykah Badu – vocals
Charles "Poogie" Bell, Jr. – drums
Karen Bernod – background vocals
Hubert Eaves IV – bass
Norman "Keys" Hurt – keyboard
N'Dambi – background vocals
Joyce M. Strong – background vocals

Erykah Badu - 'Unplugged'

Erykah Badu - "Window Seat"

Music video by Erykah Badu performing Window Seat. (C) 2010 Universal Motown Records, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc.

The Roots - "You Got Me" ft. Erykah Badu

Composition by Jill Scott

Erykah Badu: "Call Tyrone"

Lyrics:

Alright"
I'm gettin' tired of your shit
You don't never buy me nothin'
See Everytime you come around
You got to bring Jim, James, Paul, & Tyrone
See why can't we be by ourselves, sometimes
See I've been having this on my mind
For a long time
I just want it to be
You and me
Like It used to be, Baby
But ya don't know how to act
So matter of fact
[Chorus]
I think ya better call Tyrone
(Call Him)
And Tell him come on,
Help you get your Shit (Come On, Come on)
You need to Call Tyrone
(Call Him)
And tell him I said come on
Now everytime I ask you for a little cash
You say no and turn right around and ask me for some ass
Oh, Well hold up
Listen partna
I ain't no cheap thrill
Cause Miss Badu is always comin' for real
And you know the deal
Everytime we go somewhere
I gotta reach down in my purse
To pay your way and your homeboys way
And sometimes your cousin's way
They don't never have to pay
Don't have no cars
Hang around in bars
Try to hang around with stars
Like Badu
I'm gon' tell you the truth
Show and prove
or get the boot
I think ya better, ([Erykah Badu] He, he he)
(Call Him)
And tell him come on
Help you get your shit
You need to call Tyrone
(Call Him)
[Erykah Badu] "Hold On"
But ya can't use my phone

Erykah Badu - "Tyrone" (Live):

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Erykah_Badu

Erykah Badu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Erykah Badu

Born	Erykah Abi Wright February 26, 1971 (age 44) Dallas, Texas, United States
Occupation	Musician singer-songwriter producer actress
Years active	1996–present
Children	3
Musical career
Genres	R&B neo soul quiet storm jazz hip hop
Instruments	Vocals keyboards guitar drums theremin drum machine
Labels	Kedar Universal Motown Control Freaq
Associated acts	Soulquarians Common D'Angelo The Roots
Website	Erykah-Badu.com

Erykah Abi Wright (born Erica Abi Wright; February 26, 1971),^[1] better known by her stage name Erykah Badu (/ˈɛrɨkə bɑːˈduː/), is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, activist, and actress. Badu's career began after opening a show for D'Angelo in 1994 in her hometown; record label executive Kedar Massenburg was highly impressed with her performance and signed her to Kedar Entertainment.^[1] Her first album, Baduizm, was released on February 11, 1997.^[2] It spawned three singles: "On & On", "Next Lifetime" and "Otherside of the Game". The album was certified triple Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).^[3] Badu's first live album, Live, was released on November 18, 1997 and was certified double Platinum by the RIAA.^[3]

Badu's second studio album, Mama's Gun, was released on October 31, 2000.^[4] It spawned three singles: "Bag Lady", "Didn't Cha Know?" and "Cleva". The album was certified Platinum by the RIAA.^[3] Badu's third album, Worldwide Underground, was released on September 16, 2003.^[5] It generated two singles: "Danger" and "Back in the Day (Puff)". The album was certified Gold by the RIAA.^[3] Badu's fourth album, New Amerykah Part One, was released on February 26, 2008.^[6] It spawned two singles: "Honey" and "Soldier". New Amerykah Part Two was released in 2010 and fared well both critically and commercially.

Musically her work includes elements from R&B, hip hop and jazz.^[1] She is best known for her role in the rise of the neo soul subgenre. She is known as the "First Lady of Neo-Soul" or the "Queen of Neo-Soul". Early in her career, Badu was recognizable for wearing very large and colorful headwraps. For her musical sensibilities, she has often been compared^[7] to jazz great Billie Holiday.^[8]^[9] She was a core member of the Soulquarians. As an actress, she has played a range of supporting roles in movies including Blues Brothers 2000, The Cider House Rules and House of D. She also speaks at length in the documentaries Before the Music Dies and The Black Power Mixtapes.

Early life

Erykah Badu was born Erica Abi Wright in Dallas, Texas on February 26, 1971. Her mother raised her, her brother Eevin, and her sister Nayrok alone after their father, William Wright Jr., deserted the family early in their lives. To provide for her family, the children's grandmother often helped to look after them while Badu's mother, Kolleen Maria Wright (née Gipson), worked as an actress in theatrical productions. Influenced by her mother, Badu had her first taste of show business at the age of four, singing and dancing with her mother at the Dallas Theatre Centre.
By the age of 14, Badu was free-styling for a local radio station alongside such talent as Roy Hargrove. In her youth, she had decided to change the spelling of her first name from Erica to Erykah, as she believed her original name was a "slave name." The term 'kah' signifies the inner self. She adopted a surname of Badu because it is her favorite jazz scat sound; also, among the Akan people in Ghana, it is the term for the 10th-born child.^[10]

Upon graduating from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Badu went on to study theater at Grambling State University, a historically black college. To concentrate on music full-time, she left the university in 1993 before graduating, and took on several minimum-wage jobs to support herself. She taught drama and dance to children at the South Dallas Cultural Center.
Working and touring with her cousin, Robert "Free" Bradford, she recorded a 19-song demo, Country Cousins, which attracted the attention of Kedar Massenburg. He set Badu up to record a duet with D'Angelo, "Your Precious Love," and eventually signed her to a record deal with Universal Records.^[10]

Career

Baduizm (1997–99)

Baduizm, Badu's debut album, was released in early 1997. The album was met with critical and commercial success, debuting at number two on the Billboard charts and number one on the US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.^[11]^[12] Baduizm‍ 's commercial and critical success helped establish Badu as one of the emerging neo soul genre's leading artists.^[13] Her particular style of singing drew many comparisons to Billie Holiday.^[14] Baduizm was certified three times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, Gold by the British Phonographic Industry and the Canadian Recording Industry Association.^[3]^[15]^[16]

The album produced four singles, the lead single "On & On" was released in January 1996,^[17] and reached number twelve on the US Billboard Hot 100 charts and the UK Singles Charts, as well as making an appearance on the New Zealand charts.^[18] The album and lead single also gave Badu her first nomination and win at the Grammy Awards, where On & On won Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and the album won Best R&B Album.^[19]^[20]

Badu recorded her first live album, Live, while pregnant with Seven, and the release of the recording coincided with his birth.^[21] The album was released on November 18, 1997 and reached number four on the US Billboard 200^[22] and number one on the US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.^[23]^[24] The album was certified two times platinum by RIAA for shipments of over two million copies.^[3] The albums lead single, "Tyrone", was released in October 1997 and became another R&B hit single. "Tyrone", lyrically, is a song chiding a selfish, cheap, and inattentive boyfriend.^[25] Badu also collaborated with the Roots (who had previously handled production duties on a number of tracks on Baduizm) on their breakthrough 1999 release, Things Fall Apart. She was featured on the song "You Got Me", by The Roots and American female rapper Eve, co-written by Jill Scott, the song peaked at 39 in the US and 31 in the UK. The song went on to win The Roots and Badu a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group in 1999.^[26]

Mama's Gun and Worldwide Underground (2000–06)

Badu backstage in Hamburg, Germany in 2002.

After taking some time off to raise her child, Badu returned in 2000 with Mama's Gun. The album was characterized as more organic in sound than her previous studio album, and primarily produced by the Soulquarians and noted bassist Pino Palladino. A remix of one of the album's songs, "Bag Lady", was issued as the first single and topped the R&B charts for seven weeks. The album was well-received, with the lyrical content winning notices from many publications. Reviewers found some of her lyrics hard to decipher on her initial releases.^[27] Despite not charting as high as her first two albums, Mama's Gun was another platinum-selling success, and "Bag Lady" was nominated for a Grammy Award.

By 2000, Badu was in a romantic relationship with fellow Soulquarian Common. The two released "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)" as a collaboration on the Brown Sugar soundtrack. "Love of My Life" hit #9 on the pop charts, topped the R&B listings, and in 2003 Badu was awarded her fourth Grammy Award for it.^[28] In 2001 Badu embarked on the Mama's Gun World Tour. The tour started in North America on February 10 in Cleveland, Ohio at the Allen Theatre.^[29] Badu will perform two nights in Washington, D.C. and Chicago.^[30] The tour itinerary will continue with additional dates throughout the summer in Europe and the U.S.^[31] After the release of Mama's Gun and "Love of My Life", Badu suffered writer's block.^[32]

On September 16, 2003, she released her third studio album Worldwide Underground, the album was more jam-oriented than any of her prior releases, and Badu said that the album was designed to as "one continuous groove."^[33] Upon release Worldwide Underground, the album was met with some criticism towards its loose, unconventional structure and songwriting, the album received generally positive reviews from music critics.^[34] Commercially the album fared well and debuted at number three on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart in the week of October 4, 2003,^[35] selling 143,561 copies in its first week.^[36] Ultimately spending 11 weeks on the Billboard 200, it also entered at number two on Billboard‍ 's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and spent 30 weeks on the chart.^[37] By December 2003, the album had sold 394,000 copies domestically.^[38] On October 28, 2003, Worldwide Underground was certified gold in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America, following sales in excess of 500,000 copies in the United States.^[39] According to Nielsen SoundScan, the album has sold 609,000 copies in the United States.^[40]

Its first single, "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip Hop)", peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.^[41] The second single "Danger" reached number 82 on the Hot 100 and number 27 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs,^[42] while the third single "Back in the Day (Puff)" peaked at number 62 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.^[43] Badu received four further Grammy nominations for the album. She also contributed to Zap Mama's album Ancestry in Progress (2004), adding her vocals to the track "Bandy Bandy." Badu embarked on the "Worldwide Underground Tour" in 2004.^[44] The U.S. trek kicked-off February 3, in New Orleans and ran through the winter and spring with supporting act Floetry joining the tour February 5 in Houston.^[45] The Roots made a special opening act appearance at the show of February 11 in Los Angeles. Badu resumed the tour during the fall with additional dates in America and Europe.

Badu in 2005.

In 2005, she was a judge for the 4th Annual Independent Music Awards, to support independent artists' careers. Badu founded the Sugar Water Festival, a music festival co-found by Badu, Queen Latifah and Jill Scott. The trek played to amphitheaters and arenas in the United States during the summer of 2005 and 2006. It began in 2005 as an event to bring awareness to health issues to African-American women. British duo Floetry opened shows during the 2005 run. The festival was relaunched briefly in 2006 with Kelis opening the show and comedian Mo'Nique hosting the festival.^[46] 2006 was the final year for the outing. The festival had plans to expand into Europe and Asia, however, this did not come to fruition. The Summer Tour was a concert tour in 2006 by Badu. The tour started on June 10, in Knoxville, TN, with three shows in the U.S. and resumed in July for several shows in Europe. Badu co-headlined with dates in August with Jill Scott and Queen Latifah at the "Sugar Water Festival".^[47]

New Amerykah Part One (2007–09)

After receiving her first computer as a Christmas gift, Badu began communicating and receiving music from Questlove among others, including Q-Tip and J Dilla. Badu later began to use her laptop as a mini recording studio to construct various backing tracks for songs, which led to the album's primary recording sessions at Electric Lady Studios in New York City.^[48]^[49] In 2007 Badu was said to have three albums in the works for release during 2007 and 2008. "Honey", a new single produced by 9th Wonder, was leaked online in November 2007. The fourth studio album, titled New Amerykah Part One, was released by Universal Motown Records,^[50] in the United States on February 26, 2008, Badu's 37th birthday.^[51] It was released in European countries on February 29,^[52] in Australia and the United Kingdom on March 3,^[53]^[54] and in Japan on March 12.^[55] Both Japanese and Australian editions contain the bonus track "Real Thang".^[55] The album's digital release to the iTunes Store featured the song's "Tumbling Dice Remix" as a bonus track.^[56] New Amerykah Part One was also released as a double vinyl LP on March 11,^[57] and on USB stick format.^[58]

Badu in July 2008

The album's lead single, "Honey", was released on December 11, 2007.^[59] It reached number 88 on the US Billboard Hot 100, on which it spent three weeks.^[60] The song also charted at number 22 and spent 17 weeks on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.^[60] Upon release New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) received universal acclaim from music critics.^[50] In the United States, the album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 125,000 copies in its first week.^[61] It was Badu's best opening week since her debut album Baduizm in 1997. It also entered at number two on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.^[62] According to Nielsen Soundscan, New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) sold 359,000 copies in the United States by early 2010.^[63] Erykah Badu performed at the 10th annual Voodoo Experience in New Orleans the weekend before Halloween 2008.^[64] In the United Kingdom, the album charted at number 55 on the UK Albums Chart, on which it spent one week.^[65] In France, it debuted at number 49 and spent 11 weeks on the French Albums Chart.^[66] In Switzerland, it debuted at number 10 and spent six weeks on the Swiss Albums Top 100.^[52] In the Netherlands, the album entered at number 25 and spent seven weeks on the Mega Album Top 100.^[67] In Poland, it reached number nine and spent eight weeks on the Polish Albums Chart.^[68] The album's highest international charting was number five in Sweden, where it charted for seven weeks.^[52]

During 2008 and 2009 Badu embarked on two world tours. The Vortex Tour (2008) was a tour in support of, New Amerykah Part One.^[69]^[70] The U.S. tour kicked off May 4, in Detroit, MI ending on June 15, in Albuquerque, N.M.^[71] The second leg of tour reached Europe on June 25, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Badu toured across Europe playing shows that included an itinerary for the month of July. Several more shows were added throughout August in the U.S.. The Jam Tour was a summer music concert tour in 2009.^[72] The tour started in March, Badu played dates across North America twice and Europe, which ended in Dallas, Texas on October 16. During the U.S. second leg, Badu was featured as a special guest co-headliner on hip-hop artist Mos Def's "Ecstatic Tour"^[73] on select September dates.^[74]

New Amerykah Part Two and Window Seat controversy (2010–12)

"New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh)" Badu's fifth studio album was released March 30, 2010, on Universal Motown in the United States.^[75] It was released in Japan on April 14, 2010.^[76] Upon release the album was met with general acclaim from music critics.^[34] The album debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 110,000 copies in its first week.^[61] It also entered at number two on Billboard‍ 's R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.^[61] In the United Kingdom, New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh) debuted at number 56 on the UK Albums Chart and at number nine on the R&B Albums Chart.^[77]^[78] In Canada, the album debuted at number 36 on the Top 100 and at number five on the R&B Top 50 chart.^[79]^[80] New Amerykah Part Two achieved moderate chart success in international markets, peaking within the top-50 in several countries, including Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark.^[77] During March 2010, Badu promoted the album through television performances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, The Wendy Williams Show, Chelsea Lately, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Good Day New York.^[81] She also appeared on the April issue cover of EQ magazine and was featured in the April issues of Nylon and Playboy, while she is also scheduled to appear in upcoming issues of several publications, including Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Time Out New York, Spin, Vibe, Paste, and People, among many other publications.^[81] Badu performed at a surprise midnight show on March 31, 2010 at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles.^[82]

Erykah Badu, at Umbria Jazz in 2012.

The internet-only promotional single "Jump up in the Air (Stay There)", featuring Lil Wayne and Bilal, was released on Badu's official website in January 2010. RC Williams, Badu's musical director, said that a music video for the track was shot in Dallas.^[83] The album's first official single, "Window Seat", was released by Badu through a downloadable link on her Twitter page.^[84] The song peaked at number 16 on Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.^[37] The album's second single, "Turn Me Away (Get MuNNY)", was released March 24, 2010 by Badu as a free download online.^[85]^[86] It spent three weeks on the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, peaking at number 87.^[37] On Wednesday, February 9, 2011, Vimeo.com released a new video for "Gone Baby, Don't Be Long", directed by Flying Lotus. The video was tweeted by Badu herself and friend and associated music act Questlove from the Roots.^[87]

On March 13, 2010,^[88] Badu filmed the video for her song "Window Seat", at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, the site of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. She wrote on her Twitter feed that the video "was shot guerrilla style, no crew, 1 take, no closed set, no warning, 2 min., Downtown Dallas, then ran like hell."^[89] The team did not acquire permission or permits from the city. In the video, Badu shed her clothes as she walked along a Dallas sidewalk until she was nude at the site where Kennedy was shot. A shot rang out as the song ended, Badu's head jerked back, and she fell to the ground. Children with their families could be seen nearby as Badu stripped.^[90] When asked about stripping nude in the presence of minors, Badu said, "I didn't think about them until I saw them, and in my mind I tried to telepathically communicate my good intent to them. That's all I could do, and I hoped they wouldn't be traumatized."^[88]^[91] In response, Badu said on The Wanda Sykes Show on April 3, 2010, that it was not her intention to insult the memory of the late President Kennedy: "My point was grossly misunderstood all over America. JFK is one of my heroes, one of the nation's heroes. John F. Kennedy was a revolutionary; he was not afraid to butt heads with America, and I was not afraid to show America my butt-naked truth."^[92] Coodie and Chike, directors of the "Window Seat" video, said they had bail money ready during filming, in case Badu was arrested.^[92] Badu said the video was a protest against "groupthink" and was inspired by Matt and Kim's music video "Lessons Learned." Badu has also said she has "no regrets".^[88] In 2011 Badu appeared on Flying Lotus' fourth album, Until the Quiet Comes.^[93] Badu appeared on the debut album by the supergroup Rocketjuice and The Moon, which was released in March 2012^[94] and album Black Radio by Robert Glasper.

Sixth studio album (2015)

In 2013, Badu appeared on "Treehome95" from Tyler, The Creator's second studio album, Wolf as well as appearing on the song "Heaven for the Sinner" from Bonobo's album, The North Borders.^[95] Badu featured on Janelle Monáe first single from her second studio album The Electric Lady, "Q.U.E.E.N.", the song, premiered on SoundCloud and made available for download purchase at the iTunes Store on April 23, 2013.^[96] The song peaked at 47 on the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts.
In May 2013, Erykah Badu announced she is writing for her next project, but she is not placing a time constraint on it.^[97] In July 2014, Badu revealed she was still working on the album and had been recording in April in Africa where she was "laying down drum tracks". Badu continued to reveal that prior to her trip to Africa she has meetings with her record label to set a deadline for the album.^[98] Later that year Badu expanded on the album, stating she was working with producer Flying Lotus, who she met via MySpace years ago, they later met in L.A. at guitarist Steve Wilson's house.^[99]

Other ventures

Badu has also ventured into acting. She made her debut as a supporting role in the 1998 film Blues Brothers 2000, playing Queen Mousette.^[100] The film gained mostly mixed to negative reviews from film critics and was considered a commercial failure.^[101]^[102] Badu made her second appearances in The Cider House Rules (1999), where she played the character of Rose Rose.^[100] The film fared well both critically and commercially,^[103] with Badu receiving numerous awards and nominations including a win at the 2000 Black Reel Awards for best supporting actress as well as nominations for Screen Actors Guild Awards and Satellite Awards.^[104] In 2004 Badu returned to the screen playing Lady/Bernadette in House of D.^[100] Badu also had small roles in Before the Music Dies (2005), and Dave Chappelle's Block Party (2006). She is reported to have a leading role alongside Mos Def in the upcoming indie film, Bobby Zero, which tells a story of a struggling couple, who hit rock bottom after Mos Def's character gives up his artistic dream to pursue an advertising corporate job to live on.^[105] She also appeared in scenes of the music video of Miko Marks' 2006 recording "Mama" and Common's video for "The Light," as well as making a special appearance on the sitcom Girlfriends.

Badu alongside Brenda Cherry, Creola and Shaquanda Cotton at the Africa Care Academy 10th Annual Educational Awards Banquet in Dallas, Texas.

In 2008 Badu became the face of fashion designer Tom Ford White Patchouli fragrance. Ford, longtime friends with Badu, considered her the best choice for the campaign. "I have always considered her a true beauty ... she just fits", says Ford.^[106] In late December 2013, it was announced that Badu would become the face of Givenchy's 2014 Spring collection.^[107]

Badu also remains an activist in her hometown of South Dallas.^{[citation needed]} In Nation19 Magazine Badu talked about why she set up her own charity organization, titled Beautiful Love Incorporated Non Profit Development (B.L.I.N.D. 501c3).^[108] The charity was established in 1997 and aims to provide "community-driven development for inner-city youth" through the use of music, dance, theater and visual arts.^[109] The organization's first endeavor was to establish a base of operations. Erykah chose to renovate and reopen the Black Forest Theater in South Dallas.^[109] The Black Forest serves as a community center, bringing people together in order to celebrate the art and culture of south Dallas.^[109] The Black Forest's stage is equipped for shows and performances, and has hosted both free and fundraising concerts by music artists including Prince, Snoop Dogg, Jill Scott, Musiq Soulchild, Dead Prez, Talib Kweli and Questlove from The Roots.^[109] All of the artists volunteered their time to help with the charity.^[109] As an outreach for B.L.I.N.D., Erykah traveled to Africa in February 2003, where she worked with children affected by AIDS and poverty. Erykah has also received the Key to the City of Dallas and been recognized in Philanthropy Magazine for her efforts in community service.^[109]

Musical style

Musically her work includes elements from R&B, hip hop and jazz.^[1] For her musical sensibilities, she has often been compared^[7] to jazz great Billie Holiday.^[8]^[9] Badu's style is a prime example of neo-soul, as she focuses on the contemporary styles of the genres soul and hip hop. Mama's Gun is a neo soul album, that incorporates funk, soul, and jazz styles.^[110] The album has been viewed by critics as a female companion to neo soul artist D'Angelo's second album Voodoo (2000), which features a similar musical style and direction.^[111]^[112]^[113] Worldwide Underground followed in the same vein as Badu's previous efforts, the album was a neo-soul album prominently incorporating hip hop and funk elements, the album features an unconventional musical structure. New Amerykah Part One, music is dense,^[114] stylistic amalgam that primarily incorporates funk, soul, and hip hop genres,^[48]^[115]^[116] as well as jazz and electronica.^[117] In contrast to its predecessor New Amerykah Part One (2008), which was digitally produced and political in tone, New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh) incorporates sampling and live instrumentation.^[118]^[119]

Lyrically Badu expresses a deeper message, as opposed to common R&B music. The majority of Badu's music is greatly influenced by her beliefs of the Nation of Gods and Earths and her exploration of her African heritage.^[120] The songs in Badu's album, "Baduizm" express her personal take on life. Her philosophy is influenced by African ideology, African-centered and Five Percent theologies and Southern African-American folk traditions. Mama's Gun has an confessional lyrical theme by Badu, which cover themes of insecurity, social issues and personal relationships. Worldwide Underground contains minimal songwriting concerning hip hop culture, love, ghetto life, and gang culture.^[49]^[121]^[122]^[123] New Amerykah Part One is an esoteric concept album with sociopolitical themes and mostly downbeat subject matter,^[124]^[125] featuring more impersonal topics and social commentary than on Badu's previous work.^[51] Its subject matter deals with social concerns and struggles within the African-American community, exploring topics such as institutional racism, religion, poverty, urban violence, the abuse of power, complacency, cultural identity, drug addiction, and nihilism.^[126]^[127] Badu has said that the album discusses "religion, [...] poor families, the undermining of the working class, the so-called minority.",^[128] Lyrically New Amerykah Part Two, contains more personal lyrics focus on themes of romance and relationships.^[118]^[119] Badu has described its sound as "very analog".^[129]

During Badu's childhood and school years, she drew influences from a variety of hip-hop artists including Kool Herc, Red Alert, DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ Spinderella and Salt 'n' Pepa; expanding on this she noted the previous rappers as being "very inspiring to me, because they were the people who conducted feelings".^[130] Badu is inspired by "stimulating" experiences, she was also influenced greatly by her music teacher Ms. Goodman.^[131] Her teacher encouraged her to take up music.^[131] Badu also takes influence from her grandmother and her religious views which Erykah described as a lesson saying "When you do it, it gotta be real, or that's not it."^[131]

Honors and awards

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Erykah Badu

Badu in street art in Sutton, Greater London, England

In 1997, Badu received six nominations and won three, Favorite Female Solo Single for "On & On", Favorite Female Solo Album for Baduizm and Best R&B/Soul or Rap Song of the Year for "On & On" at the Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards.^[132]^[133] In 1998, Badu received fourteen nominations and won eight, including Favorite R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist at the American Music Awards; Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "On & On" and Best R&B Album for Baduizm at the Grammy Awards; Outstanding New Artist and Outstanding Female Artist at the NAACP Image Awards; Favorite Female Soul/R&B Single for "On & On", Favorite Female Soul/R&B Album for Baduizm and Favorite New R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist for "On & On" at the Soul Train Music Awards.^[19]^[20]^[134]^[135]^[136]^[137]
In 2000, Badu received two nominations and won one, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group at the Grammy Awards.^[138] In 2003, Badu received twelve nominations and won two, including Video of the Year for "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)" at the BET Awards and Best Urban/Alternative Performance for "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)" at the Grammy Awards.^[139]^[140] In 2008, Badu received eleven nominations and won two, including Best Director for "Honey" at the BET Awards and Best Direction in a Video for "Honey" at the MTV Video Music Awards. Overall, Badu has won 16 awards from 57 nominations.^[141]^[142]^[143]

Legacy

Although she disputes the term, Erykah Badu has been dubbed "the first lady of neo soul" and "the queen of neo-soul".^[115]^[144]^[145]^[146] Baduizm‍ 's commercial and critical success earned Erykah Badu popularity at the time and helped establish her as one of the emerging neo soul genre's leading artists.^[13] Along with D'Angelo's Brown Sugar (1995) and Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite (1996), the album has been recognized by music writers for beginning neo soul's popularity and helping the genre obtain commercial visibility at the time.^[147]^[148]^[149]

Erykah Badu has been dubbed "the first lady of neo soul" and "the queen of neo-soul".^[115]^[144]^[145]^[146]

Music writers have credited the breakthroughs of D'Angelo's Brown Sugar (1995), Erykah Badu's Baduizm (1997), Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite (1996), and Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998) with shaping and raising the neo soul movement to commercial visibility into the late 1990s.^[148]^[149]^[150]^[151]^[152] According to Farley, D'Angelo's album "gives a nod to the past, [...] mints his own sound, with golden humming keyboards and sensual vocals and unhurried melodies [...] His songs were polished without being slick and smart without being pretentious", while Badu "brought an iconoclastic spirit to soul music, with her towering Afrocentric headwraps, incense candles, and quirky lyrics".^[153] Baduizm sold nearly three million copies and won Badu two Grammy Awards.^[115]

In a 2010 article for PopMatters, music writer Tyler Lewis elaborated on the term in retrospect, stating: "The term 'neo-soul' has been the subject of intense debate ever since Kedar Massenburg coined it as a way to market Erykah Badu's Baduizm 13 years ago. Given the way black music has been named by (usually) outsiders ever since the blues, the reaction to the name by artists who ostensibly fit into the 'neo-soul' category represents a wonderful example of black self-determination in an industry that is still defiantly wedded to narrow definitions and images of black folks."^[154]

Personal life

Badu has been a vegan for over 20 years: "Vegan food is soul food in its truest form. Soul food means to feed the soul. And to me, your soul is your intent. If your intent is pure, you are pure."^[155] Badu splits her time between Dallas and the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.^[156]
In 1995 Badu became involved with rapper André 3000 of OutKast, with whom she had her first child, a son named Seven Sirius Benjamin, who was born on November 18, 1997.^[157] Their relationship ended sometime in 1999. Their relationship inspired André 3000 to write the song "Ms. Jackson". In 2000, Badu was in a romantic relationship with fellow Soulquarian Common; their relationship ended in 2002. On July 5, 2004, Badu gave birth to a daughter, Puma Sabti Curry; Puma's father is West Coast rapper The D.O.C., originally from Dallas. On February 1, 2009, Badu gave birth to her third child, a girl named Mars Merkaba Thedford; with her boyfriend of five years, rapper Jay Electronica.^[158] It was a family event attended by Puma and Seven as well.^[159]

On April 2, 2010, Badu was charged with disorderly conduct, a class C misdemeanor, for appearing nude in Dealey Plaza in Dallas while filming the social-political, performance art, self-directed music video for "Window Seat." No witnesses called police at the time of the incident, but the Dallas police actively sought witnesses after the release of the video.^[160] Sgt. Warren Mitchell said the decision to cite Badu for a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500 – came after witness Ida Espinosa, 32, of Vernon, offered a sworn statement to police Thursday, April 1. Espinosa declined to comment to The Associated Press.^[161] On April 28, 2010, Badu pled not guilty rather than paying the fee by mail.^[160]^[162] On August 13, she paid the $500 ticket and began a term of six months' probation.^[163]

Controversy

In April 2014, Badu came under fire by the US-based Human Rights Foundation, for performing at the birthday celebration of Swaziland's ruler and monarch, King Mswati III. Mswati, credited as Africa's last absolute monarch, is considered to be a serial human-rights abuser, ruling in luxury in a country famed for its poverty and spiralling HIV rates. Badu presented Mswati with a $100 bill, and a good-luck stone.^[164]

Discography

Main article: Erykah Badu discography

Studio albums

Live albums

Live (1997)

Tours

Baduizm World Tour (1997–2000)
Mama's Gun World Tour (2001–02)
Frustrated Artist Tour (2003)
Worldwide Underground Tour/UNDERGROUND RUN (2004)
Sugar Water Festival Tour (2005)
Summer Tour (2006)
Dave Chappelle/Badu tour (2007)
The Vortex World Tour (2007–08)
4TH WORLD WAR TOUR (2009)
Out My Mind, Just in Time World Tour (2010)
ENTER THE FREAQ WORLD TOUR (2012)
THE PURPLE LIGHT: SPOT DATES (2013–present)

Filmography

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1997	All That	herself	Season 3, Episode 21
	One Life to Live		Two episodes, musical guest
	The Chris Rock Show		Season 1, Episode 5 – musical guest
	Later... with Jools Holland		Series 9, Episode 6 – musical guest
	MTV Unplugged		musical guest
	Planet Groove		musical guest
	New York Undercover		Season 3, Episode 21 – musical guest
1997, 2012	Late Show with David Letterman		musical guest
2002	The Tonight Show with Jay Leno		musical guest
2002	Def Poetry Jam		Season 2, Episode 2 – guest poet
2004	Kid's Lives... Starring Erykah Badu		video short, host
2004	Chappelle's Show		Season 2, Episode 8 Music Jump-Off Special
2005	Tavis Smiley
2005	The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson		Episode #65
2006	September in Brooklyn: The Making of 'Block Party'		documentary short
2008	Ellen
2009, 2013	Yo Gabba Gabba!		Season 3, Episode 09 Season 4, Episode 2
2009	The Brian McKnight Show
2010	The Mo'Nique Show
	The Wanda Sykes Show		Season 1, Episode 19 – musical guest
	Jimmy Kimmel Live!
	The Wendy Williams Show
	Chelsea Lately		musical guest
2011	Building the 'House of D'		video short
2012	Independent Lens		Season 13, Episode 14 – documentary series
2013	Real Husbands of Hollywood		Season 2, Episode 10
2013	Soul Power		1 episode
2014, 2015	Black Dynamite	Fatback Taffy

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1998	Blues Brothers 2000	Queen Moussette
1999	The Cider House Rules	Rose Rose
2001	Erykah Badu Live	herself	documentary
2002	Stars: An Oscars Party	herself	documentary
2004	House of D	Lady / Bernadette
2006	Before the Music Dies	herself	music documentary
2006	Dave Chapelle's Block Party		music documentary
2009	Say My Name"		documentary
2010	Teenage Paparazzo		documentary, uncredited
2012	Re:Generation Music Project		documentary
2012	Diary of a Decade: The Story of a Movement		documentary
2013	They Die by Dawn	Stagecoach Mary	short
2014	What Difference Does It Make? A Film About Making Music	herself	music documentary

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External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Erykah Badu.

Sound Projections

Welcome to Sound Projections

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Erykah Badu (b. February 26, 1971): Outstanding singer, musician, composer, songwriter, arranger, ensemble leader, and performance artist

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/erykah-badu-mn0000170770/biography

Artist Biography

by John Bush

ERYKAH BADU

Active1990s - 2010sBorn: February 26, 1971 in Dallas, TXGenre: R&BStyles: Alternative R&B Neo-Soul Adult Contemporary R&B Contemporary R&BAlso Known As Erica Abi Wright

Related

The Soul and Science of Erykah Badu

R&B's hippie high priestess blasts off into outer space with New Amerykah Part Two,' her freakiest, funkiest album ever

Erykah Badu

Album: Mama's Gun

Erykah Badu

New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War

Motown; 2008

RATING: 7.8

By Nitsuh Abebe

June 6, 2008

Pitchfork

Erykah Badu

New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh

Motown; 2009

By Mike Powell

April 6, 2010

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Erykah Badu Greatest Hits Full Album #REMINIZZZ

Reminizzz is the new Music streaming / Social-networking app. To JOIN the circle, CLICK HERE : http://www.reminizzztheapp.com

The Roots and Erykah Badu Live Concert Roots Picnic Philly 2015--(This concert is smoking!):

Erykah Badu--"Honey"-- Live

"Sugar got a long way to catch you..."

Mix - Erykah Badu - "Other Side Of The Game"

Music video by Erykah Badu performing Other Side Of The Game. (C) 1997 Kedar Entertainment / Universal Records Inc.

Erykah Badu - "Bag Lady"

Erykah Badu - "Honey"

Erykah Badu - "On & On"

Music video by Erykah Badu performing On And On. (C) 1997 Kedar Entertainment / Universal Records Inc.

Erykah Badu Live LP 2009

Erykah Badu - 'Worldwide Underground' FULL ALBUM

Erykah Badu - "Afro Blue"

"In love with you"--Erykah Badu feat. Stephen Marley

Erykah Badu Live - Full Album 1997

Erykah Badu - 'Unplugged'

Erykah Badu - "Window Seat"

Music video by Erykah Badu performing Window Seat. (C) 2010 Universal Motown Records, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc.

The Roots - "You Got Me" ft. Erykah Badu

Composition by Jill Scott

Erykah Badu: "Call Tyrone"

Lyrics:

Erykah Badu - "Tyrone" (Live):

Erykah Badu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

Early life

Career

Baduizm (1997–99)

Mama's Gun and Worldwide Underground (2000–06)

New Amerykah Part One (2007–09)

New Amerykah Part Two and Window Seat controversy (2010–12)

Sixth studio album (2015)

Other ventures

Musical style

Honors and awards

Legacy

Personal life

Controversy

Discography

Tours

Filmography

Television

Films

See also

References

External links

Editor's Bio

Blog Archive

Labels

Active
1990s - 2010s
Born: February 26, 1971 in Dallas, TX
Genre: R&B
Styles: Alternative R&B Neo-Soul Adult Contemporary R&B Contemporary R&B
Also Known As Erica Abi Wright