Word: badue
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Dates: during 1997-1997
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...ERYKAH BADU BADUIZM (Kedar Entertainment/Universal) Some singers can break your heart; Badu can put it back together again. Her neo-soul songcraft draws from soul, jazz, blues and hip-hop--but instead of a chaotic swirl of sound, the result is a slow-burning, meditative album that brings all these genres together. This is healing music about magic and love, racism and reincarnation, late-night parties and Afro picks. Badu's voice is a natural wonder, sharp and metallic, wounded and sad, yearning for empathy in one song, decrying injustice in the next. Her brilliant companion CD, Live, which captures...
...beginning of "Apple Tree," she coos, "I can't control the soul flowin' in me," going on to prove it with scat refrains culminating in a call-and-response exchange with the audience. In "Apple Tree" as well as throughout Live, Badu lets her Southern accent creep beautifully into her phrasing, turning a there into "thur" and a can't into a lingering "caint...
Almost all artists, as if subject to some unwritten law, do covers and Badu is no exception. However, the covers included on Live are not tepid re-workings that ultimately ruin their classic sources. Badu's rendition of Chaka Kahn's "Stay" is one of the best songs on the album. With her back-up band wrenching every bit of swagger and boom, Badu goes from a husky scat to a sonic howl that sounds like Mariah Carey after a massive infusion of soul. She does a medley of "Boogie Nights," "All Night" and "Jamaica Funk" that will bring...
...tracks ending the album are by themselves worth the price of the CD. "Now keep in mind, I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my shit," Badu says before introducing "Tyrone," the only previously unreleased track on the album. She has nothing to worry about. "Tyrone" is four minutes of slinky feminist blues that is sure to be the R&B song of early 1998. A conversation with a selfish lover who's more interested in hanging out with his buddies (including the aforementioned Tyrone) than Badu, the track takes Mary J. Blige's "Not Gonna...
...Badu's 12-minute rendition of the hit "Next Lifetime" comes close to perfection, finding new heartache, wisdom and charm in the hit. Sounding like Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, the song climaxes first in a soulful whirl that is followed by Badu's backup singers scatting into heaven. "I'll be the moon shine on you/I'll be the womb give you fruit/I'll be heaven love me right/I'll be divine give you light," Badu sings at the end. Here, as on the entire album, she proves that although she is not the second coming of Billie Holiday, Erykah...