…e. Badu posted this a while back  on her myspace page as she awaited her newest baby’s arrival…though her words are simple, they’re true..

…IF YOU BELIEVE IT IT’S YOURS . TRUST .

Just a quick track-by-track run-through of all the songs on my High Fashion mixtape!  I hope you enjoy it and this fleshes out the stories behind the music for you all

High Fashion

The photos for this mixtape were actually the last thing to get done! I had a lot of ideas for it, but basically it involved playing dressup and taking lots of fun fun pictures of me pouting in designer accessories and too much lip balm and radiating attitude! Trust me, some of the pictures were horrendous, but I was pleased that I got some decent ones that I chose to use.  In contrast to the Quiet Storm artwork, which incorporates a lot of dark blues, purples and blacks with white type and layered translucent textures (evocative of the intimate, nocturnal atmosphere embodied by the album), the artwork for the mixtape is very bright, very immediate (no gloss or photoshopping!) and very tongue in cheek – I do not dress that ostentatiously in real life!!!  But it was a lot of fun

Official Boy

This song was recorded a year ago – obviously, it’s a cover of Cassie’s song “Official Girl”… I seem to be the only one who loved that song!  I was obsessed with that song at the time because I could relate – I was semi-dating somebody but didn’t know where I stood. (It turned out to be nowhere.)  So I got the instrumental and decided to rerecord my version – in the process, I learned a lot about creating vocal layers and harmonies and counter-melodies, and I appreciated how densely the original song is constructed.  I also wrote my own rap, which was really fun.  I really liked Cassie’s latest material, as I did a cover of this song and “Touch Me” samples another Cassie song, “Nobody But You”.

Touch Me (see post!)

Hook Boy (Remix)

This song uses the instrumental of Day26’s “Imma Put It On Her”, continuing the love for Bad Boy artists.  I have always been impressed by Diddy’s production skills and most of the Bad Boy tracks that have come out over the last 12 years have had really solid music and production.  It’s a remix of the song “Hook Boy” on Quiet Storm, and so I changed up the melody and some of the lyrics somewhat, but the basic skeleton of the song remains the same, though this remix has a more celebratory, uptempo feel to it, relishing being in the club and being with the one you love.

Get Me Home (Interlude)

I liked the harmonies on this one, but I have an interlude called “Focused” on the album where I did a superior job of a similar type of harmony, so I removed this track from the album and kept it for the mixtape.

Jump Off (Part I) (Snippet)

The original version of a song which is on the album (appropriately called “Jump Off (Part II)”), this is a very straight-up R&B ballad, no frills.  The lyrics have been kept more or less identical between the two songs, but Part II has a much more R&B, nocturnal feel which I fell in love with and which suited the feel of the album as a whole much more.  I might finish this version eventually, because I think it has potential, but I kinda left it by the wayside in favour of Part II, which is one of my favourite tracks on Quiet Storm, and very lyrically honest.

Don’t Look Now (Game Over)

This song was written after I was seeing somebody who just suddenly disappeared with the excuse that “I need space”… BULLSHIT mayne!!!   I decided to channel my irritation positively, and this record was a cutting, dance-type response to that whole situation.  I like the lyrics in it, which pay a nod to “Bad Girl” and “Pretty Boy” by the now sadly defunct Danity Kane, as well as Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable”.  My favourite lyric is “dangerous and brokenhearted”, and I briefly considered that as an album title.  I love the ring of it, but ultimately there is something about the song that meant it couldn’t hang with the rest of the tracks that made the album, so ultimately it got relegated to the mixtape!

Pronunciation (Interlude)

This was just a big big laugh… it sets the scene for the next song, “Armani Earrings”, which is a track on Quiet Storm that I just had so much fun writing, as it really epitomises swagger!  The idea came from the “learn Italian” tapes they play in the bathrooms at Frankie & Benny’s restaurants, and working in The Perfume Shop and getting irritated at how many designers names got mangled by customers on a regular basis.  So this interlude is a play on all of those things, as well as a lead-in to the next track.

Armani Earrings

… you’re gonna have to wait for the story behind this one!!!  Just enjoy it for now

Can’t Play A Playa

Originally I was so excited about this track, with the military gunshot-style intro and the catchy hook… but somewhere along the line, although I tried out a lot of different ideas such as having a rap in the middle of the song instead of at the bridge, and multiple hooks and stuff, I felt it lost the sparkle and drive I was aiming for the song to have, so I didn’t feel it was strong enough to make the album.  I like the song, but I just couldn’t execute it the way I wanted to so I kept it back for the mixtape.

Wild Heart

During my time at Oxford uni, I became friends online with a guy who got into trying to write and produce his own songs.  He sent me this track that he’d written and produced (the production is a slightly different style to anything I’ve done, though the song itself I like), and asked me to resing it.  I went a bit crazy with it, attacking it with different melodies and ad-libs, and when I sent it back he was like “WOW you have CHANGED it!!!” I really liked the way it turned out, but I think he was somewhat taken aback… I never really considered this song for the album, especially as my only input into it was changing some of the melodies, harmonies and structuring, but I like it nonetheless so I thought that there was no harm in putting it on High Fashion.

Role Model

The first element of this song that I had was the bassline, and then I just started adding lyrics to it.  I remember half of it was written in my head on a car journey with my parents, and the minute we got back in the door I rushed upstairs and spent an hour creating the song.  I like the sung chorus element, because it really expressed how I don’t feel that I fit easily into many categories that people try to pigeon-hole me into.  In terms of the music I listen to, my educational background and my sexuality (among other things), I don’t really feel that what is widely portrayed in the cinema really represents me, and I wanted to put across the fact that just because there is a stereotype for these things doesn’t mean that everybody necessarily fits them.  Although it’s not my finest hour rapping (and I like to think that the rhymes on “Armani Earrings” demonstrate how much I’ve improved), the lyrical subject matter is very true and I am positive I am not the only young person who feels misrepresented.  You have to be who you are, for the sake of who you are.

Broke WIthout Remedy

I was listening to Erykah Badu’s most recent album New Amerykah and wanted to do a song which was a bit more unstructured and organic sounding, so I hit up Garageband and started playing with samples. This is the result! I was near the end of my university degree at Oxford, and I was kinda frustrated because I didn’t know where I was going next and I was in a lot of debt and I was just like “what happened? I thought this degree would solve all my problems and it’s just left me with more!”  With my new uni course and being so happy and that being beyond me, the perspective I now have of Oxford is perhaps more balanced and I can appreciate the quality of degree and the good friends that I got from there, but at the time of writing / singing the song, I was feeling quite down.  Towards the end, my voice cracks and I kept it in as evidence of too much cigarettes + emotional despair = raw vocals!

I Want To Know What Love Is (see post!)

High Fashion (Acapella) (Outro)

Another little acapella taster of the “High Fashion” track on my album.  The Intro uses some of the backing music, and the outro uses the first verse and chorus of the song.  Although I’m not 100% happy about ending the album with 2 acapellas in a row, I definitely thought that these last two songs both deserved to be on the mixtape and both fit at the end.

So there you are!  Once again, you can download the mixtape HERE and I really hope you enjoy it!

Cover of Mama's Gun, released on Motown/Puppy Love; image courtesy of dallassouthblog.com

Originally, I was going to write about Mama’s Gun, Erykah Badu’s second full-length album, in tandem with PJ Harvey’s Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea. The reason for this was two-fold: for one, I got the two albums within a week of one another my senior year as Christmas presents (one of the few perks of having divorced parents) and, for another, both albums are turn-of-the-century declaratives about the complexities and contradictions of women being in and out of love, sometimes thrillingly occupying both positions at once. I also thought, as a neat aside, that it might be useful to think about contemporary female artists’ work across racial and/or generic boundaries.

However, I worry that I’d be doing a disservice to those particularities by glossing over them in what would inevitably be an overgrown post. Furthermore, there are some jarring differences between the two albums that I cannot yet resolve in thinking about them together. Harvey’s ”happy” album is largely believed to be about her by-now defunct relationship with hipster auteur and New York die-hard Vincent Gallo; Badu’s “game-changing” album is conclusively about the end of her relationship with OutKast’s André 3000 and possibly the beginning of another one with Common. Harvey’s album finds her brightening her sound after her more experimental, less well-received Is This Desire? (which absolutely will be discussed as a record that made me a feminist once I start recounting my college years). Badu’s album finds her expanding her sound (and perhaps the sound associated with “neo-soul,” however silly a term that became), a project she would continue to do with last year’s mind-blowing, radically political, and tremendously funky, New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War.

Cover for New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) (Universal Motown, Puppy Love Entertainment, Control Freaq; 2008), image courtesy of dallasobserver.com

Most importantly, for my purposes, while the former speaks more specifically to love’s ability to project, the latter speaks to the embodied, conflicting feelings of a female place in a relationship.  

Badu and I had met previously. Baduizm came out in 1997 and I found out about it thanks to Kurt Loder and the good people of MTV News who proclaimed that I would, in fact, hear it from them first. I bought it that summer for my birthday (for what it’s worth, I bought it with Ben Folds Five’s Whatever and Ever Amen — happy birthday to 14-year-old me!). She also made appearances on One Life To Live as herself, and acted in Blues Brothers 2000 and Cider House Rules (which I still have not seen in its entirety, but I know that she does a good job playing a tragic character in what I thought was an otherwise totally boring movie). But I treasured my copy of Baduizm, marvelling that someone could make vintage jazz, R&B, and funk sound so refreshingly hip and contemporary. She had such an interesting and beautiful voice. I loved that the music was coming out of a Texas girl who also spelled her name with a “y” (albeit for far more politically motivated reasons than me; Erykah Badu changed her name to be closer to her Ghanan roots while I became ”Alyx” because we were studying Egypt in sixth grade social studies and I thought the spelling looked — ugh, white girl fail – more hieroglyphic).

But this album, which came out during my senior year hit me like a soft, sexy bomb (an apt reappropriation of Tom Breihan’s assessment of D’Angelo’s Voodoo, another pioneer 2000 release that, for some reason, I don’t own. I have, of course, seen the delightfully NSFW video for “Untitled“). I actually heard “Didn’t Ya Know” for the first time at a movie theater in West Palm Beach visiting my dad on Christmas vacation (I think it played before a screening of Cast Away). The Spice Girls’ “Holla” played some time after that, but as J. Dilla’s warm, soulful production wrapped around me and Badu’s at-times wrenching and at-times assured vocal delivery let me know what I’d be spending that Sam Goody gift certificate on.

Speaking of J. Dilla, Badu’s collaborative spirit was also something of an inspiration to me, especially since was able to work with men. Like Björk, who has worked extensively with like-minded dudes like directors Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze, as well as producers like Matmos, Mark Bell, and Nellee Hooper, Badu was always able to forge creative spaces with men while still standing her own ground. With The Roots or producer J. Dilla (and later Madlib and 9th Wonder), she was still fully able to articulate her artistic imperatives. When she duets with Stephen Marley on “In Love With You,” she seems to be coming at the song (and its subject matter) as an equal. It should also be noted that she’s got room for the ladies too, working with women like Jill Scott and, on this album, Betty Wright.

One thing I’ve always felt Badu doesn’t get enough credit for as a musician is her loopy yet razor-sharp sense of humor. Anyone who follows fatbellybella on Twitter can tell you Badu is hilarious. But her humor is also evident in her songwriting, which while often confessional will often diffuse potentially maudlin moments with daffy yet incredibly perceptive asides (the bridge to  ”…& On” recounts memorable moments – in loose rhyme – going with her mom to the laundromat, her first period, learning about oppression at school, watery cereal, hearing herself on the radio, and wearing head wraps). Her self-awareness is also evident — “…& On” makes several direct references to Baduizm’s breakout hit “On and On,” and “Cleva” mediatates on how she uses her brains and wit to compensate for self-perceived physical deficits, lamenting that her breasts sag when she’s not wearing a bra, bragging that her thrift-store togs look awesome, and stating, upfront, that this is what she looks like without makeup.   

Her humor is also in her voice. People tend to focus more on her voice’s supposed “jazziness,” especially early on in her career when critics were clamoring to figure out how most subtly to compare her timbre and tone to the tragic Billie Holiday’s. And while Holiday’s humor also gets obscured from this discussion, if we have to compare Badu’s voice to someone else’s, I actually think Badu’s closer to Blossom Dearie, the recently deceased singer who used her high-pitched coo to utilize a myriad of possibilities, whether it be taking pot-shots at hipsters or singing about unpacking adjectives. I could hear Badu doing both, maybe even in the same song.

What makes Badu’s approach to songwriting interesting is that her sense of humor can turn a song whose subject matter seems silly or inconsequential or rote on the surface into something surprisingly more progressive. Take “Booty,” for example. The song originally seems to be a a diss song directed at a woman whose man has turned his attentions toward Badu. While the woman has a PhD, is more conventionally attractive, is a better cook, boasts a fast-tracked career, and is more financially stable than Badu (at least in this song, as college-educated Erica Wright went to Grambling), Badu still has to fight off her partner’s advances. At first, when Badu says “I don’t want him,” it seems to suggest that this man (and, by association, this woman) are beneath her. Yet, in the bridge (the song has no verses), Badu reveals that her intentions speak toward a kind of female solidarity, albeit one strained by classed circumstantial differences. She doesn’t want this man, not because she has designs on someone else, but because he doesn’t respect his current relationship enough to be honest and make arrangements with his partner. In essence, Badu believes both women need to cut this man loose because they can do better.

She performs a similar feat with “Bag Lady,” which at first seems to be an indictment about women who enter into relationships with too much baggage. What it ends up becoming is an anthem about personal freedom and empowerment, with Badu encouraging the woman to break free from her self-imposed shackles, stressing that self-love will make it better while being backed by a euphoric women’s chorus. 

Many would argue that “Green Eyes,” a ten-minute suite that stands as the album’s final song, is its centerpiece. I’d be one to agree, and find it especially astonishing that OutKast’s “Ms. Jackson,” which tells André 3000’s side of their break-up was released but a few months before Mama’s Gun came out (Badu also makes a cameo on the album, singing with her former partner about broken dreams in the chorus of “Humble Mumble”). As Touré discusses in his Rolling Stone review of Mama’s Gun, it’s hard not to read into these musicians’ personal moments that then get projected into their work, with the audience knowing who’s singing (or rapping) to who. You could easily do it with Beyoncé singing about being ”Crazy in Love” with Jay-Z, who would then reply that he’s got hip hop and R&B’s ”number one girl . . . wearing (his) chain” in “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.” You could also easily do it with Badu’s appearance in the music video for Common’s “The Light,” a song the rapper wrote for her about their (now-defunct) relationship, strengthening the musical association by having J. Dilla steer the production.  

But on its own, “Green Eyes” is an epic, discursive, devastating break-up anthem whose power few since have touched (though I think Aeroplane and Kathy Diamond’s ”Whispers” comes the closest). It begins with a flirtatious, jazzy lilt wherein Badu claims that her eyes are green, not because she’s jealous that her former lover now has a new partner. Instead, she unconvincingly lies, her eyes are green because she eats a lot of vegetables. After claiming “it don’t have nahhhh-thing to do with your . . . friend,” the music becomes slower and more dirge-like. Her voice and lyrics also become less certain, shakier. She doesn’t know if she loves him anymore, but thinks she might, and is clearly frustrated how love is putting in her in such a tether. From here, she pushes her lover further away in one phrase, claiming to do fine and realizing how angry she is at him for not recognizing her worth, while a few lines later asks if they can make love one last time. Her humor is still there, at times helping her sell the lie of her feelings, while other times confronting her with the truth. She calls herself silly at the thought of her lover being true, stating that she should change her name to ”Silly E. Badu.” It’s a joke, but no one — least of all her — is laughing. You know she’ll get through it eventually, but she has to work through her hurt before she moves forward. I know it was a song that helped me work through a broken heart, even if I had to lie face down and sob into the carpet to do it.

But there is plenty of love and lust on this album, acknowledging that women can turn art out of being happy and healthy. “Orange Moon” begins as a stately, romantic ballad to finding someone helped her believe in love, only to erupt into pure, unadulterated about how good/God her lover is (the “God” reference potentially serving as a Five Percenter allusion). “Kiss Me On My Neck (Hesi)” focuses its attentions instead on the more immediate nature of necessary gratification. The inclusion of these songs evince that for women, love and sex are neither mutual nor exclusive concepts. They can be both.

The album also allowed me to think outside of love (and thus myself) to start questioning more political matters and begin to want for more radical action. While Badu may be charming and funny, she’s also a fine, agitated mind. The song that accomplished this most specifically for me was “A.D. 2000,” a song about Amadou Diallo and his brutal murder at the hands of a quartet of trigger-happy police officers. Excepting the Rodney King beating and subsequent hearing, this was the first time I really thought about police brutality (note: Bruce Springsteen also addressed this horrible tragedy in song, to some controversy).

A year later, I would read about Mumia Abu-Jamal. Two and a half years after that, I would start dating a person who got pulled over by a cop for driving the speed limit with the headlights on in a residential area at 10 p.m. while listening to GZA’s Legend of the Liquid Sword. Eight months after that, I would read Assata Shakur’s profound autobiography. About a year after that, I would read Angela Davis’s autobiography, stunned that this intelligent, sensitive individual was the same person Ronald Reagan swore would never teach in California. Two years after that, I would get accosted by a cop for jay-walking through a red light at 3 a.m. when it was clear that the officer was more concerned by the nervous young college student of either Middle Eastern or South Asian descent walking three steps in front of me. In all this time in between, I would come to know several people who shared similar stories or worse, whether they were arrested for “obstructing a passageway” during protests or were accosted with racial profiling. I would also read about similar reported items in the news, always sad and horrified and sick and helpless that these kinds of actions still go on.

Badu would continue to be concerned with political issues like religious freedom, institutional racism, the drug trade, poverty, and sexism, and incorporate these matters into her music, which became increasingly more experimental as she matured as an artist. But with the political she always intersected personal issues, whether it was remembering growing up on hip hop records, motherhood, reconciling the fact that she had three babies with as many men, growing older, working within the mainstream, looking for ways to work outside of it, and always thinking about the ways that she fit (or chose not to fit) within it. This album was the start of thinking through these issues for me. I look forward to what Ms. Badu has to say next.

“Otherside Of The Game”

A great short set by Erykah Badu for the VH-1 Soul Stage series.  The songs from her new album NEW AMERYKAH: PART ONE (4TH World War) come off great live, especially “The Healer”.  But the highlight of this show is her performance of “Otherside Of The Game”.  Similar to D’Angelo’s live version of “One Mo’ Gin”, she takes a short section of the song, stretches it out and just jams it.  Also peep the wonderful flute work that dances throughout the song.

SETLIST
Intro / Healer
On & On
Me
Otherside Of The Game

DOWNLOAD: Erykah Badu “VH-1 Soul Stage”

Every single one of these albums is an absolute gem.

In the words of the immortal Gil Scott-Heron (sort of):

“I’m urgin’ everybody to go out and pick up these records ’cause that’s what you need to be doin’.”

Here it goes (in no particular order):

1. N*E*R*D – Seeing Sounds

2. Little Dragon – Little Dragon

3. The Foreign Exchange – Leave It All Behind

4. Hercules & Love Affair – Hercules & Love Affair

5. Illa J – Yancey Boys

6. BSTC – Music for a Saturday Evening

7. Raphael Saadiq – The Way I See It

8. Jose James – The Dreamer

9. Sam Sparro – Sam Sparro

10. Erykah Badu – New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War

capa do disco

Música de preto me dá ilusões de força. Às vezes no sexo, tocando; às vezes no palco, tocando… essa inexplicável e primitiva grandeza, esse vigor que incomoda aos que espiam apenas… mas não vou estender-me digressões: esse texto é pra falar de uma preta em particular…

Erykah Badu, ladies and gentlemen!

Uma cujo último disco acabei de comprar e de adotar desde já como mais recente vício. Acompanho Erykah Badu desde Baduizm, primeiro disco, em meados dos anos 90. Na época morava em São Paulo e começava – tardiamente, admito – a largar a barra da saia da boa e velha rock and roll mamma, para me arriscar em andanças musicais por aí. Aliás, obrigado ao André Doido por Hardcore Jollies do Funkadelic; e ao Thiago Antunes por Jorge Mautner 1974.

De Baduizm a New Amerykah Part 1– 4th World War, o álbum em questão, os arranjos foram ganhando mais texturas e complexidades – o que nem sempre é um elogio, mas que nesse caso sim –, e conseguindo explorar cada vez melhor as duas facetas da artista: a das referências do funk e do soul do passado, e a das experimentações que apontam o futuro do R&B americano.
Gravei uma fita (essa aí embaixo) que mostra bem o que disse. São 4 canções do New Amerykah:

-A faixa que abre o disco, Amerykahn Promise, um funkão clássico setentão, com linha de baixo hipnótica, marcações de naipe de metais, vozes distorcidas e discurso engajado;
-A faixa que encerra o disco, Honey – que começa com 50 segundos de vinheta tirada da música anterior, então não estranhem –, também um funk, mas puxando para os anos 80, com mais sintetizadores, melodia açucarada que gruda de primeira;
-A faixa 9, That Hump, que define, de certa forma, o soul de qualidade produzido atualmente dos Estados Unidos, arrastado, sexy, classudo;
-A faixa 5, Soldier, que mostra claramente a influência do Rap nesse novo R&B, não nos vocais, mas na estrutura da canção, com um instrumental aparentemente em loop, bateria com pouquíssima – ou nenhuma – variação, e alguns efeitos sonoros aqui e ali.
Bom proveito…

So, ich surf heut zu viel, noch mal billboard.com. In Erykah Badus Diskographie dort wird der zweite Teil ihres New Amerykah Albums gelistet. Die Information stammt wohl aus dem Katalog von Universal Japan. Als dortiges Veröffentlichungsdatum wird 19. November 2008 angegeben. Also: Im November ist unter Umständen mit Erykah Badu “New Amerykah, Pt.2 (Return of Ankh)” zu rechnen. Hoffentlich. Mehr zu Teil 1, hier bei mir oder hier bei Helga-Rockt.de.

I listened to the CD, New Amerykah…but not too hard. However, it ain’t been the same since I saw Erykah at ACL.

Man, I’ll just let the song speak for itself.

“Soldier” Lyrics

Mmmmm
See he’s organized
And he’s on the ball
Never miss a day of school
And he’s a underdog
Wanna learn more and more
Cuz his mama taught him good
He’s about to change the face
Of yo ghetto neighborhood
Walking to school today
Saw a brother on the streets
Seem like errthang was cool
Cept the brother’s packing heat
Oop oop
Then everything changed
Cuz he saw his own wings
And his mother was sad
They will last
Time will past
Cuz I

What am I talkin’ bout
Errbody know what dis song’s about
Dey be trying to hide the history
But they know who we are
DO OO you want to see
Errybody rise to this degree?
Raise ya hands high if you agree
Just say Yessireeee ooooh,
Yessiree
If you agree say,
Yessireeeeee ooooohh,
Yessiree
Ugh
Come on
Ugh
Break it down say
Mmmm, mmhhh
Hey hey (shoop)
Mmmm, aaaye
Hey hey (shoop)
Mmmm, oooh
Hey hey (shoop)
Mmmm, oooh
Hey

Now to my folks think dey living sweet,
Well dey gone f**k around and push delete
To the girls on perscriptions pills,
I know how ya feel
To my boys in iraqi fields
This aint no time to kill
To my girls in therapy,
See imma tell you this fo’ free
To my folks up on the hill,
With the cake and dollar bills,
You need to watch da dirty cop
Dey the one you need to watch
Im talking bout the dirty cop
Dey the one you need to WATCH
STOP

You get the wake up call
When you saw the buildings fall
Bowties with the final call
Get ya money dollar bill yall
Bowties with the final calls
Get ya money dollar bill yall

To my folks on the picket line
Dont stop til you change dey mind
I got luv fo’ my folks
Baptized when the levy broke
We gone keep marchin’ on
Until you hear dat freedom song
And if you think about turning back
I got the shotgun on ya back
And if you think about turning back
I got the shot gun on ya back
BLLAAAA (BLAT!)

What am I talking bout
Errbody know what dis song’s about
Dey be trying to hide the history
But they know who we are
Dooooo you want to see
Errybody rise to the NEXT degree?
Raise ya hands high if you agree
Just say Yessireeee ooooh,
Yessiree
If you agree say,
Yessiree hey,
Yessiree aye

Hey,hey,hey
Break it down say
Mmmm, ooooh
Hey hey (shoop)
Mmmm, oooh
Hey hey (shoop)
Mmmm, oooh
Hey hey (shoop)
Mmmm, oooh
Hey hey

Mmmm, ooooh
Hey hey (shoop)
Mmmm, oooh
Hey hey (shoop)
Mmmm, oooh
Hey hey (shoop)
Mmmm, oooh
Hey aye

[Fade]

“If you thinking about turning back, I got the shotgun on ya back…”

That line has resonated in my ears since I saw her live.

It’s threatening and encouraging all at once.

For some interesting Song/Album Analysis, Click Here

Don’t you hate it when you have such a surreal weekend that you need to take about two days to recover and then end up missing the best Rock The Bells show in the history of Rock The Bells? Yeah I hate that too.

Fortunately for me however, Erykah Badu was playing a free concert in Wingate Field, as part of the MLK Brooklyn Concert series. Yes, it was the first time I was going to see Erykah live, and yes I’m a huge Erykah fan, but little did I know that the concert was going to more than make up for missing out on performances by A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, Jay Z, Slick Rick, EPMD, Black Sheep, Biz Markie, Method Man, Redman, Ghostface, Raekwon, De la Soul, Mos Def, Talib, Wale, Kidz in the Hall, MURS, Cool Kids, Pharcyde, Dead Prez, Tyga, Afrika Bambatta….yeah I’m still suffering.. but Erykah was good. Really good.

The first Erykah Badu album I heard was her Erykah Badu: Live CD. I was instantly a fan, and I had the opportunity to hear what a truly phenomenal live performance can sound like. Even when I got the studio version of Baduizm, I loved the live version more. Her voice is amazing and so distinct, for her to be able deliver vocals like she does live, I wouldn’t have minded if all her subsequent albums were live. No matter, ‘Mama’s Gun’, ‘Worldwide Underground’ and ‘New Amerykah (Part 1) 4th World War’ have not failed to deliver in the slightest.

Just last week I was having a discussion with some friends on the merit of paying so much money to go to a concert, where the artist simply recreates what you see in their music video for you on stage. My argument was that a true artist will create an experience for the fan that is unlike anything they would have seen or heard whilst watching their music video or listening to their album.

Erykah is a true artist and musician. Even though I know every song on every one of her albums, her delivery of each song was new and varied from what I knew. It was refreshing, and you could see that she put a lot of thought and work into the preparation of the show. Starting with ‘The Healer’ off of her new album, you knew it was going to be a good night. ‘The Healer’, along with ‘Telephone’ are tributes to J Dilla. (Since I feel everyone in the world should know about Dilla, he will be covered at length shortly). She rattled through her hits including ‘On & On’, ‘Apple Tree’, ‘Bag Lady’, ‘Danger’, ‘Didn’t Cha Know’, ‘Bag Lady’ and ‘Tyrone’, each with a new twist.

Her explanation of the name of her new album ‘The 4th World War’ was equally inspiring and really left some food for thought. In her view, the 3rd world war is already in progress and the fourth one is going to be the people vs. the powers that be.

Dope concert and it reminded me why I love music so much. Got all 5 albums on repeat.

Did I mention it was free?

In other news. Mark Hardy has been at it again and found this:

I’m not an R. Kelly fan for a myriad of reasons…but can someone please get this man an Oscar? Is you tweakin!?

Una diosa del Soul moderno, una diva con un estilo demoledor, un fraseo irrepetible y un directo brutal. Si no os habeis pillado el último disco, “New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War”, ya estáis tardando, no es un LP fácil pero hará historia.

Dedicado a mi amiga Campanilla, un poco de honey para ella!!!

Yamasuki Singers – Kono Samouri

Erykah Badu – The Healer

I was waiting for the video realease of The Healer from Erykah Badu’s record New Amerykah before making this post but my patience wore thin. First up original song Kono Samouri from the album Le Monde Fabuleux Des Yamasuki by the Yamasuki Singers released in 1971. Since there isn’t an official video for the song I present a viral video by some high school kids with a good concept. Maximum respect to Madlib for sampling such a crazy record.

New Amerykah Part One (4th world war), de la grande Erykah, annonce la couleur dès le premier titre avec “Amerykahn promise”, un morceau soul/funk qui nous projette en pleine série policière des années 70.

“The Healer” lance l’intrigue et chaque nouveau titre nous fait évoluer dans des ambiances très différentes mais toujours groovy. Les morceaux se suivent et ne se ressemblent pas tant les sonorités varient comme avec le métaphysique Twinkle. Le tout est dynamique et très moderne.

Erikah Badu démontre une fois de plus que la vibe n’est pas une finalité mais une façon très raffinée d’apporter musicalité et émotion au texte. New Amerykah Part One est un album superbe dont on n’aura pas à attendre la suite très longtemps puisque que New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh) est prévu dans les bacs le 28 juillet. La playliste de cet été s’annonce bonne !

Note : 8/10

by vivrant thang on feeding the music jones

Ya’ll already know I was all over New Amerykah before it even hit store shelves. So it was a no-brainer that I would be front and center for the Vortex Tour. I decided to go up to the Baltimore show in early May at the outdoor Pier Six Pavilion. (Yea, I know I’m way late with this!).

The Roots opened to a somewhat nonchalant crowd. I don’t know if folks recognized that they were watching hip hop legends fifteen years in the game – and one of the illest MCs to ever touch the mic. We won’t even mention the uber-talented ?uestlove. There were a few heads up out their seats showing love. Maybe the real party was back in the cheap seats. Just seemed to me that for the most part, the crowd that was there and not on CP time were (im)patiently waiting for Ms. Badu to grace us with her presence.

I thought for sure they would get hype on “You Got Me.”

Negative.

Just criminal, I tell you.

Although it was another consistent performance, I definitely prefer to see The Roots in venues where heads are in the know…where the energy is high. I guess I’ve been spoiled.

Here they are performing:

You Got Me

Rising Down

I remember feeling an unusually high sense of anticipation before Erykah took the stage. What would the she be wearing? What would be sitting on top of her head this time? When I last saw her some eightyears ago or so, she was still all about the headwraps and incense. There was some predictability there. Now who knows what the chameleon is going to come with next…and I love it!

Don’t tell nobody but these pictures were shot by Todd over at ishootshows.com three weeks after my Baltimore show. This is exactly what she was was wearing…from head to toe. I was lucky to find these excellent photos, huh?

I was mildly surprised there wasn’t an extended wait for her to take the stage. Since time is for white people and all. When her background singers took the stage, the girl sitting next to me swore one of them was Erykah. I hadn’t read much about the tour but I immediately said that wasn’t Erykah but must be her sister. I was right. Evidentially I’m very much behind on my Badu news because I’m not sure I knew she had a sister in the business.

The first half of her set was all New Amerykah. I kept holding my breath for my favorite, “That Hump.” It was not to be. Here’s the set list (might have missed a few)

• “Amerykhan Promise”
• “The Healer”
• “Me”
• “My People”
• “The Cell”
• “Twinkle”

Amerykhan Promise

My People

Twinkle

As she performed, it was hard to take your eyes away from the one-woman show. You barely noticed anyone else on the stage. Even as she would turn her attention to her beat machine, I still found myself watching her every move. And that black girl sure plays some funky music on that thing! As she boogies on down, you want to get up there and do it to death with her. But alas, it’s a private party. You can watch, but don’t think you can get with her. As she rhetorically asked one girl, “You think you can shake it better than me?” Of course not.

The crowd, who may not have had time to scoop up New Amerykah yet, really came alive when she went into her classic hits from the first three albums – particularly tracks from the classic, Baduizm. I feel like she would have rather not. She strikes me as the type that wants to keep moving forward, which she will with two more albums on tap this year! But that would not make for very happy customers.

They want to hear classics like

• &…On
• Appletree
• Otherside of the Game
• Danger
• Times A Wastin

Appletree

Otherside of the Game (LOVE. THIS. SONG)

In between the classics, she had to remind us that she had some new stuff out! Ya’ll can groove to this old stuff but don’t forget the new. She performed two more of my favorites from New Amerykah, “Soldier” and “Master Teacher.” I particularly love “Master Teacher” because my beloved Bilal throws his voice in the mix.

Master Teacher

She left the stage and returned for her encore with “Green Eyes,” which is probably my second favorite track on Mama’s Gun. We weren’t ready for Cirque de Badu though! She brought out her exercise balls and put on quite a show (and got quite a workout!) She also took the time to introduce the security guard to the mysteries of HER personal vortex. Only Erykah. Gotta love her.

To my surprise and to the extreme chagrin of the woman standing beside me, she ended the show with “Bag Lady” and “Tyrone.” She came down through the audience and “picked up some good shit.” I was over “Tyrone” a long time ago. The crowd wasn’t. Personally, I wanted some of that “Honey.” It was not to be. I haven’t heard of any show where she has performed it. Guess she has her reasons.

Bag Lady

Another great one down in the books. I’m not sure if Baltimore was near one of the five natural vortices. But damnit, we sure created one that night!

]]> http://jescru.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/erykah-badu-new-amerykah/ Tue, 13 May 2008 22:03:26 +0000 jescru http://jescru.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/erykah-badu-new-amerykah/

ERYKAH BADU – HONEY & HONEY LIVE

NEW AMERYKAH, PT. 1: 4TH WORLD WAR.
Motown.
Edición: 26 Febrero 2008.
Estilo: Neo-Soul; R&B Contemporáneo; Urban.
Gustará a…: los que quieran escuchar a la Erykah Badu más combativa.

Cinco años después del injustamente infravalorado Worldwide underground, ese álbum disfrazado de EP, los seguidores de Erykah Badu vemos recompensada la espera con su cuarto trabajo de estudio, New amerykah, pt. 1: 4th world war. No sólo es un grato reencuentro con la versión más inspirada de la artista, sino que todo hace pensar que se trata del inicio de una serie de discos (aunque no sería la primera vez que un “pt. 1” no es indicativo de nada). Este es un álbum concepto, monotemático, en el que ofrece su visión sobre la situación de su páis, una particular “Amerykah” sobre la que se muestra comprensiblemente crítica. No puede entenderse sin situarlo en un específico contexto político, esto es, tras ocho años de administración Bush que ha sumido al país en una de sus mayores crisis económicas. En las inteligentes letras arremete contra la situación de la educación, la sanidad y el sistema carcelario (quizá aludiendo también a esas otras cárceles ilegales que Estados Unidos tiene repartidas por el mundo), no olvida el desastre del Katrina y, por supuesto, tampoco descuida preocupantes temas sociales, como la escalada de violencia o la drogadicción, que no sé hasta que punto son responsabilidad gubernamental.

Evidentemente, son esas letras, esa desalentadora visión de la realidad, las que propician el tono sombrío de New amerykah, pt. 1: 4th world war. El tono apocalíptico del título y la excelente portada, con esa alusión a una cuarta guerra mundial, no tienen su traducción directa en la música y las letras, pero tampoco escuchamos una música muy diferente de lo que sugieren. Sólo la pieza inicial, el uptempo Amerykahn promise, y Honey, absolutamente fuera de lugar, se alejan del tono general, que es oscuro, entristecedor, casi desesperanzado. Musicalmente, para transmitir esta sensación, Erykah Badu ha optado por una producción cercana a la del hip hop, de modo que no sólo ha contado con sus compañeros habituales (Ahmir Thompson, Karriem Riggins y James Poyser), sino que ha invitado a The Sa-Ra Creative Partners y a Madlib. Este último, con sus minimalistas beats y sus nada generosos arreglos, es posiblemente el que mejor se adapta al tono buscado en el disco y el que crea la perfecta equivalencia con la forma de cantar de Erykah Badu, más sobria que nunca.

La nómina de lujosos colaboradores, su propio talento y el tener un objetivo que cumplir (denuncia de la situación de su país) ha contribuido a crear un álbum tan necesario como genuino, posiblemente un futuro clásico que sólo con el paso del tiempo se apreciará como se merece.

Este es el tracklist del CD:

1. Amerykahn promise. 4:16
2. The healer. 3:59
3. Me. 5:36
4. My people. 3:24
5. Soldier. 5:03
6. The cell. 4:20
7. Twinkle. 6:56
8. Master teacher. 6:47
9. That hump. 5:24
10. Telephone. 7:47
11. Honey. 7:52

Duración total: 1:00:51

Last Tuesday’s Erykah Badu show with The Roots at Quai Jacques-Cartier in the Old Port was easily the best show I’ve seen this year so far. After The Roots played long with the setting sun, compensating for a late arrival from Erykah and the New Amerykah band, the antsy crowd was treated to another hour and a half of waiting before Badu finally took the stage. She did a pretty good job of making everyone forget how annoyed they were with waiting, delivering a cross-section of new and old songs for the people. Big thanks to Charb for the first rate pics.

Kno (of CunninLynguists) puts his spin on Ms. Badu’s latest hit. Kno’s top five, by the way.

download

Oh yeah…CL will be in town on April 28th (along with Substantial) on the Dirty Acres West Coast Tour, and your boys are opening up. Be there. The last Inverse/CL show was CRAZY. We might pop up in SF too…gotta work out the dayjob situation first.

jamboree #3

(Erykah Badu – Soldier)

as always the musicologist has been devouring a lot of diverse music from the Kinks, James Carr, Gnarls Berkley, Small Faces, Dizzee Rascal…but this one feels like today. a pucker slice courtesy of Erykah Badu….taken from her latest ‘Set’ .. the innovative New Ameryka, released last month.

puts me in mind of Curtis Mayfield…

(also featuring musicologists Roy Ayers and Madlib)

Some people know her as Erykah. Some people know her as FatBellyBella. Either way, this woman and her music have been a driving force in Black music for well over a decade now. Her ability to mix different genres of music while still keeping her own sound has attracted new fans and kept long time fans enthralled.

Here are (in my opinion, of course) Erykah Badu’s Top 15 Tracks:

15. Afro (Freestyle Skit)

14. Soldier

13. Back in the Day

12. Honey

11. Tyrone

10. Bag Lady (CD Version)

9. Danger

8. Next Lifetime

7. Love of My Life

6. Telephone

5. Other Side of the Game

4. Didn’t Cha Know

3. Certainly

2. Annie

1. On and On

Honorable Mentions: ‘Bandy Bandy’ by Zap Mama featuring Erykah Badu and ‘You Got Me’ by The Roots featuring Erykah Badu

What are your favorite Erykah Badu tracks?