Erykah Badu

Eve's Garden

It was a stormy night

You know the kind when the lightning strikes

And I was hangin’ out wit some of my “artsy friends”

ohh weeoon wee oooh

The night was long the night went on

Peep’ was coolin’ out until the break of dawn

Incense is burning so I’m feelin’ right

Ah’ight

In other words: a musical polaroid, the snapshot of an intense evening spent in the company of other human beings moved by the same gregarious spirit — a constant in the world of Art since the days of Dante's ship and the Beatles' yellow submarine. But this is no mere poetic license; we have a place — America — and a moment in history — the mid-90s — and these "artsy friends" are the Soulquarians, a collective of musicians who built a solid network through which to compare notes and discuss social issues, spirituality and philosophy. Moving within this loose formation are Common and the crew of the Roots, led by Tariq and ?uestlove, as well as D'Angelo and his trusted bassist Pino Palladino, Talib Kweli, Bilal, Q Tip, J Dilla and others besides — a plethora of voices and instruments pushing beyond the boundaries of soul, jazz, hip-hop and spoken word, to the point that record executive Kedar Massenburg coined the term neo-soul for them.

Amid this colorful (and slightly dysfunctional) group of individuals there's also room for Texan-born Erica Abi Wright. A personality both placid and lively, she can sit off to the side for hours listening to others, but once she steps up to the microphone the spotlight seems to follow her alone. What strikes you is the ease that accompanies her every gesture, and the way her image and her music merge into an instantly recognizable individualism.

The girl certainly jumps off the screen: proud, elegant features like an ancient Queen, colorful fabrics, hand-carved jewelry, and that name — Erykah Badu — reworked in honor of her African roots (something already put forward in those years by another key voice of neo-soul, Me'Shell Ndegeocello). Erykah's other distinguishing trait lies in an omnivorous love of music and a peculiar voice — a timbre rich in inflections and nuances that soars over decades of soul and jazz to settle onto bare-bones hip-hop terrain, allowing her to carry a song even with the barest instrumental backing.

Even her lyrical sensibility shows clear signs of an unusual expressive maturity, which immediately makes her a "character"; her philosophy of life is a blend of faith-based superstitions and alternative spiritual energies, kept firmly grounded, though, by the more practical logic of a keen observer of her own times. The fact that the title of her debut album sounds like a religion dedicated to herself might seem arrogant, but Erykah is never outside the dynamics she portrays: that mirror she holds up to humanity to reflect back every contradiction is the same one she looks into herself every morning. What sets her apart is the calm wisdom with which she draws her conclusions.

Those who see Erykah Badu as an heir to Billie Holiday can probably point to certain vocal modulations and the way both women know how to twist the knife into a song's guts without leaving much to the imagination, but in truth the two women couldn't be more different. If Holiday was able, like no one else, to give voice to a soul cracked by the wounds of a violently dramatic life, Erykah, by contrast, always seems able to instantly process the complexities life throws at her and, with a dash of folk philosophy, hand them back to the listener with the unshakeable patience of a pyramid on the banks of the Nile.

The social commentary of "Drama", for instance, is essentially universal and just as relevant in the years of Martin Luther King Jr.'s social movements as it is in our present — a song of unyielding hope in humankind's future even when the air around is stale. And then there's the ever-present "On & On", carrying on its shoulders all the wisdom handed down by a long line of strong women and caring mothers, who have nursed and educated the African American population since the days of slavery. Erykah moves fluidly between jazz and r&b, using her voice as an ancestral instrument and singing all the backing vocals herself, while underneath, a bass/drum backbone and sparse keyboard flourishes are just enough to set the right mood. Not much, in other words, and yet Erykah arrives already fully formed as one of the most interesting musicians of her generation.

Adam's Garden

And then of course there's love and relationships with the male universe, another eternal headache for humankind that Erykah tackles here from various angles. There's certainly a playful tone in the interlude "Afro (Freestyle Skit)," a jazz improvisation with the band messing around in the studio while she plays the role of a woman strangely amused by her man's infidelity. Far more bitter is the realization of a love going down the drain in "Sometimes," while the shifting rhythms and choral swells of "Certainly" put into music the effort of self-control required when facing someone dangerously capable of stirring our most instinctive urges. Embittered and worried for her own safety, but never desperate: Erykah is the older sister, the comforting mother, the one through whom we understand that life will go on regardless.

A whole different animal is the hazy, Afro-centric litany of "Next Lifetime," which unfolds over six liquid minutes of loose rhythms and a host of choral vocals, telling of the explicit advances of a charming man toward an Erykah already committed to a relationship:

I know I’m a lot of woman

But not enough to divide the pie

[…]

I guess I'll see you next lifetime

she makes clear with a serene tone of resignation, but also bolstered by her own worth as a woman, which keeps her from slipping up.

By the time "Baduizm" came out in February 1997, Erykah was already pregnant with her first child by then-partner Andre 3000, and what's painted on "Otherside Of The Game" plays out almost like a premonition. It's the portrait of a young couple grappling with the social and racial dynamics of America at the time; the two are bound together by strong love and a newborn child, but at the same time the future is uncertain because of his "complicated occupation." At first you might even smile at the boldness with which she comes out with a:

Because I tell him right

He thinks I'm wrong

but it's not so much pride talking as the practical instinct of a mother who doesn't want to be left alone. The musical accompaniment is exemplary in its bare-bones approach, a slow rhythm with bass and keyboard vibrations laying down a bed for the rise and fall of the vocal line - a device that stands in stark contrast to the theme, yet is complementary to the mindset of a songwriter coming to grips with the hard realization that she must depend on herself alone. It would become one of the main leitmotifs of Erykah's life, even at the cost of no small amount of criticism from her community; the relationship with Andre 3000 wouldn't last long (the hugely famous "Ms. Jackson" by Outkast was dedicated to the fallout of that breakup), and she would go on to have two more daughters with two other men (rappers Jay Electronica and The D.O.C.) without ever marrying.

It's almost too fitting, then, that the melodic "4 Leaf Clover" made the tracklist, a remake of an old Seventies soul tune from Atlantic Starr: an anthem to individual freedom and to trusting one's own instincts beyond the influence of someone else's love. Erykah the matriarch runs her family her own way, handles her own finances, and juggles her career with an almost supernatural degree of control.

Squaring the circle

In America, "Baduizm" climbed to No. 2 on Billboard's mainstream albums chart and achieved triple-platinum certification - staggering numbers for what, at least in form, is more of a jazz record than anything else.

Cementing its success, toward the end of that same year came the release of "Live," a live recording that showcases Erykah's fantastic vocal abilities and does justice to all the years of hard graft that preceded her "sudden" arrival on the scene - the vocal runs on "Otherside Of The Game" are spine-tingling, and "Next Lifetime" is stretched out here to over twelve minutes.

"Baduizm" certainly remains a one-of-a-kind record in the landscape; its spare yet granite-solid arrangements make it a listen that feels outside of time. But its existence isn't just a fluke; starting from this very same sense of space and melodic freedom, Erykah would make a bold stylistic turn with the far more powerful psychedelic-rock instrumentation of the follow-up "Mama's Gun," and the journey then pushes on into cosmic futurism with Sun Ra-like inflections across the two chapters of "New Amerykah" and - more recently - a trap-tronic mixtape inspired by a Drake song. In hindsight, then, you realize that "Baduizm" was just the first piece of a grand design that was already crystal clear in its creator's mind. Erykah Badu, a woman of ancestral wisdom and a creator sure of her own mission and her own place in the world - in her own words:

I don't walk around tryin to be what I'm not

I don't waste my time trying to get what you got

I work at pleasin’ me cause I can’t please you

And that’s why I do what I do

Ride the wave of great music

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14/07/2019