Word: mamas
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...popular music. Her voice cutting like a subtle blade, her beats pumping like block parties, she mixes myriad influences in her work, but winds up sounding just like herself. Her spectacular debut album, Baduizm (1997), blended hip-hop realism with soul-sister mysticism. Now, with her new CD, Mama's Gun (Motown), Badu faces a dilemma. Will she get so caught up in her own arresting persona that it devolves into schtick? Or, in the bit of real estate she's staked out, does she have as-yet-unrevealed alleys and avenues to explore...
Since Badu's debut, other neosoul sisters, including Macy Gray, Jill Scott and Angie Stone, have followed her up the charts. Mama's Gun, however, confirms Badu as a singular talent who won't get lost in the crowd. The album stretches but doesn't overreach. It explores varied stylistic terrain but manages to maintain a consistent tone. The songs flow into one another, echo one another, but don't repeat one another; Badu has clearly thought the album through as a whole work, not simply as a collection of singles...
...Mama's Gun's final track, a mini-suite titled Green Eyes, is the album's most ambitious and accomplished song. Badu, 29, says the number is about her breakup with rapper Andre Benjamin, of the Atlanta-based group OutKast, who is the father of her three-year-old son Seven. The suite is divided into three "movements," beginning with a Holiday-esque jazz ditty ("Denial"), moving to a soul-infused second part ("Acceptance") and culminating in a cathartic final passage ("The Relapse"). The suite, which lasts 10 minutes although it never feels long, is a testament to her skill...
...turns out that voter fraud runs both ways. "The woman next to me couldn't see," Mama Ann told me. "The workers talk to one another. They don't pay attention. So I walked into her booth and punched Gore for her without anybody looking." This is going to be a long, drawn-out legal process...
...real question in Palm Beach is whether this scandal will be bad for the Jews. After spending months being concerned that Joe Lieberman would be blamed for a Gore loss, they now have to fear that they themselves will be the scapegoat. But Mama Ann saw a potentially positive aspect of the backlash. "Let them blame the Jews. It's about time they put some new machines in." Then after rethinking, she said, "There's enough trouble the Jews have. The blacks are up in arms too. I don't know why. Reverend Jacksy, Jacksy, what's his name...