Mama's Gun

Like everyone else, we first fell in love with Erykah Badu on her 1997 debut single, “On & On.” But it was her 2000 sophomore studio album, Mama’s Gun—creatively restless, stylistically adventurous, lyrically direct—that made us stay in love. The screaming live-band funk of opener “Penitentiary Philosophy” tells you right away you shouldn’t settle in expecting a rehash of her debut’s smooth R&B. And while a remix of “Bag Lady” was its biggest single, we’ll never get over album closer “Green Eyes,” a wrenching, ravishing song suite narrating the end of a relationship.