100 Best Albums
- FEB 11, 1997
- 14 Songs
- Mama's Gun · 2000
- Baduizm · 1996
- Baduizm · 1997
- Mama's Gun · 2000
- Things Fall Apart · 1999
- New Amerykah, Pt. 2: Return of the Ankh · 2010
- Baduizm · 1997
- The Album (Deluxe) · 2020
- Brown Sugar (Music from the Motion Picture) · 2002
- Mama's Gun · 2000
Essential Albums
- After a five-year break from releasing music, neo-soul icon Erykah Badu returned in 2008 with this masterpiece of avant-garde R&B and forward-thinking hip-hop. Building on the sociopolitical vision of Marvin Gaye and Sly Stone, she establishes a transcendental mood on “The Healer”—a Madlib-assisted rumination on the power of hip-hop—while voicing the struggles of single black mothers on the beautifully woozy “That Hump.” Her voice is especially powerful on “Soldier,” while “Twinkle” culminates in a furious call to action.
- 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.
- In 1997, as a new cadre of socially conscious, hip-hop soul songwriters was emerging from the underground, Baduizm shifted the entire R&B landscape. A 25-year-old Texan with a preternaturally cool sense of groove and a jazz twang that conjured Billie Holliday with a joint simmering between her fingers, Badu brought an approach to songwriting that simply was the sound of neo-soul. “Baduizm was designed to get you high,” she said at the time. “Baduizm is lighting my incense, lighting my candles, knowing the creator, knowing myself.” Her approach to spirituality in her music was down-to-earth—as was her style, with flowing dresses and an omnipresent head wrap. But her music was otherworldly, even as she sang conversationally about the concerns of the everywoman, whether working poverty and sociopolitical pressures or the dirty deeds of unworthy lovers. Propelled by the slow groove of her rotating backing band, including bass legend Ron Carter and a little-known Philadelphia group called The Roots, she channeled and then embodied a cultural shift towards Afrocentricism, creating a sonic throughline of Black musics like ’30s blues and ’70s jazz to soul on the precipice of a new millennium, all anchored by a deeply funky rhythm section. “Sometimes (Mix #9)” makes great use of Philly’s Gamble and Huff-style groove, while lead single “On & On” brought Blue Note Records to the era of the b-girl. One of Badu’s great feats was the way she wove her voice in and around the bass and drums like sultry tendrils of smoke, loose as a free-jazz saxophonist when she wanted to be. The cohesion and promise of Baduizm’s vision took her triple-platinum and made her a star, and hinted at her long career to come.
Albums
- 2000
Artist Playlists
- She's a modern-day soul sister.
- A fearless diva mining music's diverse past.
- 2003
Appears On
- Strange Fruit Project
More To Hear
- The influential crown jewel of the neo-soul movement.
- This song features Erykah Badu, but it helped Jill Scott blow up.
- Nadeska Alexis celebrates 25 years of Erykah Badu’s iconic debut album.
- Erykah Badu shares songs to help you breathe and stay centered.
- The artist shares songs to help you breathe and stay centered.
- The artist shares songs to help you breathe and stay centered.
- Erykah Badu shares songs to help you breathe and stay centered.
More To See
- 24:45
About Erykah Badu
As fearless as she is unpredictable, Erykah Badu is one of American music’s true originals. Indeed, no one could have predicted just how unique her trajectory would be when the singer and songwriter—born Erica Wright, in Dallas, in 1971—first became a leading light of the neo-soul movement alongside friends like D’Angelo and The Roots with the 1997 release of her first hit single, “On & On,” and Baduizm, her impossibly cool full-length debut. While Badu’s deft and playful vocal delivery garnered early comparisons with Billie Holiday, her creative vision proved to be much broader than the slinky, coffee-bar-ready jazz and soul of her early releases. On 2000’s Mama’s Gun and both parts of 2008’s ambitious New Amerykah, Pt. 1 (4th World War), Badu crafted her own bewitching and sometimes bewildering brand of soul, funk, and psychedelia, which she laced with stinging sociopolitical commentary and sly humor. Blazing her own trail, she became an icon and inspiration to younger musical adventurers like Flying Lotus, Georgia Anne Muldrow, and Tyler, The Creator, all of whom later became her collaborators. In 2015, Badu ended a seven-year hiatus as a recording artist with But You Caint Use My Phone, a deliriously odd and enthralling mixtape filled with her riffs and spins on Drake’s then-inescapable “Hotline Bling.” Only Badu could carry off such a wild idea and do it with such imagination and style.
- HOMETOWN
- Dallas, TX, United States
- BORN
- February 26, 1971
- GENRE
- R&B/Soul